"For instance, the two who first approach are in the latter category. The one, a native of the little town of Velilla in Aragon, after having passed ten years in bondage with the Turk, without once hearing of his much-loved wife, comes home to find her bound again in wedlock, and the mother of five little ones who can claim no kin with him. The other, son of a wool-merchant of Segovia, was carried off by a corsair nearly twenty years ago: he returns with a lively apprehension that matters have gravely changed during that time with his family, and he will find himself a prophet in his loss. His father and mother are dead; and his brothers, who shared their wealth, have dissipated it foolishly enough." "My attention is rivetted," exclaimed the Student, "upon a slave whom, by his looks, I judge to be delighted that he is no longer exposed to the seducing influence of the bastinado." "The captive whom you speak of," replied the Devil, "has good reason to rejoice at his deliverance: he has learnt, since his return, that an aunt to whom he is sole heir has just been released from her troubles, and that he is consequently about to enjoy the free use of her brilliant fortune. This it is which now occupies his thoughts so agreeably, and gives to his appearance that air of satisfaction which you remark. "How all unlike is he to the unhappy cavalier who walks beside him; the tortures of suspense fill his bosom incessantly: I will tell you on what they impend. When he was taken by a pirate of Algiers, as he was passing into Italy from Spain, he loved a maiden and by her was loved: he dreads lest, while he was in chains, his fair one's constancy may have failed her." "Has he been long a slave then?" asked Zambullo. "Eighteen months," replied Asmodeus. "Pooh!" exclaimed Leandro Perez, "I fancy our gallant is a prey to causeless fear; he has hardly put his mistress's fidelity to such a test as to have need for great alarm." "There you are mistaken," replied the Cripple; "his princess no sooner heard that he was captive to the Moor, than she hastened to provide herself with a more fortunate lover. "Would you credit now," continued the Demon, "that the man who follows immediately behind the two we have been speaking of, and whom that thick and sandy beard so horribly disfigures, was once a very handsome man? Nothing, however, can be more certain; and you see, in that bent and hideous figure, the hero of a story remarkable enough to induce me to relate it to you. [Illustration: Fabricio]