Upon entering the chamber of Aziek, he found her alone, lying along a sopha shaded by thin drapery: she spoke to him without altering her position or uncovering her face, for she was ill, and greatly agitated: her motive for admitting him to her presence at such a period, was not merely to see him again, or to receive his thanks, but to soothe him under a disappointment she had been forced to prepare for him. El Hader had been previously with her, when she had exerted all her influence for the pardon of Sebastian: at first he refused to hear his daughter’s petition, expressing great anger at her partiality to this ungovernable Christian, on whom so many favors had already been thrown away; he ridiculed the idea of a slave’s preferring death to a few strokes of the whip, and told her plainly, that if she continued thus to protect a Christian, merely because he was of her mother’s country, the Moors would proclaim her an enemy to the true faith. Kara Aziek mildly allowed herself to be called foolish and profane, yet redoubled her intercessions, availing herself of her severe illness to plead with more earnestness for indulgence: she prayed, she wept, she embraced her father’s knees, telling him that she had vowed for her mother’s sake never to cease protecting the two Portuguese, and that consequently, she could not remain inactive now, without breaking that inward promise. Her tears and touching feebleness at length melted El Hader, and he consented to limit the punishment of Sebastian to a month of the hardest labour in his quarries: “as the fellow is so strong and ingenious,” he concluded, “I would not part with him, but his countryman, your other favorite, shall be sold immediately; he is a sickly, stupid, good-for-nothing dog, and the sooner he is got rid of the better.--see that you make no attempt to bring these Christian fools to a leave-taking--if you do, I swear by the beard of the Prophet, that the slave Fabian shall pay the price of your fault.” This had been the Almoçadem’s parting command, and Kara Aziek, for Sebastian’s sake, did not venture to disobey,--she detailed her father’s resolution with many sighs and expressions of deep regret: the King turned pale: and an exclamation of grief escaped him; not for himself he grieved, but for the less healthy Gaspar, who had so long been accustomed to receive from him comfort and assistance.--