Part 13 (1/2)
”Of course, poor girl, I could not help pitying you. By the bye, Cynthia--would you do anything that would make me better?”
”Try me, Leila.”
”Well then, Cynthia--do tell me--frankly, as a friend--I'll forget I am your mistress--I will not punish you. _Did_ you have any communication with Barbarossa?”
Cynthia's face changed. ”Oh, Leila! how can you ask?”
”Well then, say no! It is so easily spoken.”
”It is not easy.”
”Easy or difficult, you _must_ say.”
Cynthia's obstinate look came on, which showed the case to be hopeless.
”Oh, very well, Cynthia; then you do not love me, that is all.” And the d.u.c.h.ess turned her face away.
”I _do_ love you, Leila.”
”No, I don't believe you.”
Cynthia took her hand and wetted it with tears. The d.u.c.h.ess drew it away.
”I wish you would kill me, Leila.”
”Don't tell such stories, Cynthia. You know it is not my nature to kill people; though there were persons wicked enough to say I had killed poor Muza, after cutting out his tongue, which you know he had lost before he ever came to me.”
”I know it, Leila.”
”Muza was perhaps sent back as a spy; though he pretended he had escaped. There are so many wicked people in the world that I do not know who to trust--I believe I shall end by distrusting everybody.”
”Oh no, Leila. Do not!”
”Why, how can I trust _you_? You have eaten of my bread and drank of my cup these two years, and you are no more _of_ us than if you were a stone.”
”I love my own people, I own,” said Cynthia. ”And so would you love yours, if you were exiled from them.”
”I love mine without being exiled from them.”
”But you would find you loved them still more if you were sold into slavery.”
”If Barbarossa had taken me to Constantinople! Well, I believe I should.
There is no making anything of you, Cynthia. You are a riddle. I believe I could love you if you were not so close. But you shut yourself up like a hedgehog. Sing me one of your Moorish songs--that one about Zelinda and Ganzul. Perhaps you may quiet my poor nerves.”
So Cynthia immediately began a long, wailing ballad, the Spanish version of which begins:--
”En el tiempo que Zelinda Cerro ayrada la ventana A la disculpa, a los zelos Que il Moro Ganzul le dava.”