"You who feel so sensibly the woes of others, ah! how would you grieve for that other slave, he who wears upon his head that little cap of brown cloth, did you but know the ills he has endured during twelve years, in the house of an English renegade, his patron." "And who is this unhappy captive?" asked Zambullo. "He is a cordelier of Navarre," replied the Demon. "I must own, however, that for myself, I rejoice that he has suffered so severely; since, by his eternal preaching, he has prevented more than a hundred Christian slaves from adopting the turban." "Well! to imitate your frankness," replied Don Cleophas, "I must say that I am really afflicted to think that this good father should have been so long at the mercy of the barbarian." "As to that," replied Asmodeus, "you are as unwise to regret it, as I to rejoice. The good monk has turned his dozen years' captivity to so good account, that he will find his advantage in having passed that time in suffering instead of in his cell, where he would have striven with temptations that he would not at all times have vanquished." "The first captive after the monks," said Leandro Perez, "has a most complacent air for a man who returns from slavery: he excites my curiosity to know his history." "You anticipate me," replied the Cripple; "I was just about to tell you all about him. You see in him, a citizen of Salamanca, an unfortunate father, a mortal rendered insensible to misfortune by the weight of those he has experienced. I am tempted to relate to you the painful details of his life, and to leave the rest of the captives to their fates; besides, there is scarcely another whose adventures are worth the trouble of telling." The Student, who began to tire of this sombre procession, stated that he asked for nothing better; whereupon, the Devil began the history contained in the following chapter. [Illustration: tailpiece of the Aragonese physician and the cordelier of Navarre] CHAPTER XX. OF THE LAST HISTORY RELATED BY ASMODEUS: HOW, WHILE CONCLUDING IT, HE WAS SUDDENLY INTERRUPTED; AND OF THE DISAGREEABLE MANNER, FOR THE WITTY DEMON, IN WHICH HE AND DON CLEOPHAS WERE SEPARATED. "Pablos de Bahabon, son of an alcade of a village in Old Castile, after having divided with his sister and brother the small inheritance which their father, although one of the most avaricious of men, had left them, set out for Salamanca with the intention of increasing the number of students in its university. He was well made, not without wit, and was just entering upon his twenty-third year.