which I now am; but through all my perils, by the
favour of Heaven, I have preserved my honour unsullied, and that
consoles me in my misery. I know not at this moment where I am, nor who
is my master, nor what my adverse fates have determined is to become of
me. I entreat you, therefore, senor, by the Christian blood that flows
in your veins, that you will advise me in my difficulties; for though
they have already taught me something by experience, yet they are so
great and never-ending, that I know not what to do."

Mahmoud assured her he would do what he could to help her to the best of
his understanding and his power. He acquainted her with the nature of
the dispute there had been between the pashas concerning her, and how
she was now in the keeping of his master the cadi, who was to send her
to Constantinople to the Grand Turk Selim; but that he trusted that the
true God, in whom he, though a bad Christian, believed, would dispose of
her otherwise. He advised her to conciliate Halima, the wife of his
master the cadi, with whom she was to remain until she was sent to
Constantinople, and of whose character he gave her some details. Having
given her this and other useful counsel, he arrived at the cadi's house,
and delivered her over to Halima along with his master's message.

The Moorish woman received her well, seeing her so beautiful and so
handsomely dressed, and Mahmoud returned to the tents, where he
recounted to Ricardo, point by point, all that had passed between
himself and Leonisa; and the tears came into his eyes when he spoke of
the feeling displayed by Leonisa, when he told her that Ricardo was
dead. He stated how he had invented the story of Cornelio's captivity,
in order to see what impression it made on her; and in what disparaging
terms he had spoken of him. All this was balm to Ricardo's afflicted
heart.

"I remember, friend Mahmoud," he said, "an anecdote related to me by my
father; you know how ingenious he was, and you have heard how highly he
was honoured by the emperor, Charles V., whom he always served in
honourable posts in peace and war. He told me that when the emperor was
besieging Tunis, a Moorish woman was brought to him one day in his tent,
as a marvel of beauty, and that some rays of the sun, entering the tent,
fell upon her hair, which vied with them in its golden lustre; a rare
thing among the Moorish women, whoso hair is almost universally black.
Among many other Spanish gentlemen p