"At last I met several women of my own race, who were settled in a certain village, and who gave me other clothes. They advised me to conceal my birth and my religion, because the people thereabout did not like foreigners, and detested Moors above all others. Alas! it seems that they are detested everywhere, for I was told later that, instead of welcoming as brothers those who succeeded in reaching Africa, the men of Barbary massacred them or reduced them to a worse slavery than that of Spain. "How could I follow the advice that was given me to conceal my origin? I did not know the Catalan language well enough for that. At first people gave me alms; but, when a Spaniard passed, he would say to the people of the neighborhood: "'You have a Moorish woman among you.' "And they would turn me away. I wandered from valley to valley. "One day I found myself on a highroad--I learned afterward that it was the Pau road--and there it was that heaven caused me to fall in with a woman even more unhappy than myself. She was the mother of the child before you, who has become mine." "Go on," said the marquis. But Mercedes paused, seemed to reflect, and finally said to Lucilio: "I cannot tell the story of the child's parents except to you alone--you, who saved his life, and who seem to me to be an angel on earth. If I may remain here a few days, and if I see no danger for Mario, I swear that I will tell the whole story; but I am afraid of the Spaniard, and I saw this old gentleman put his hand in his, after reproving him for his harshness toward us. I understood it all with my eyes; nobles are nobles, and we poor slaves cannot hope that the kindest-hearted of them all will take our part against their equals." "Equality has nothing to do with it!" cried the marquis as soon as Lucilio had translated Mercedes's words for him in writing. "I swear, on my faith as a Christian and my honor as a gentleman, to protect the weak against the whole world." The Moor replied that she would tell the truth, but that she should omit certain unimportant details. Then she resumed her narrative in these words: "I was on the Pau road, but at a very lonely spot in the heart of the mountains. There, as I was taking a little rest, having concealed myself for fear of the wicked men whom one is likely to meet in all countries, I saw a man pass with his wife. "The woman was walking a little in advance; brigands ran up behind them, and killed and robbed the man so quickly that his wife did not see it, and, when she turned to speak to him, found him lying dead across the road. "At that sight she fell in a swoon, and I saw that she was _enceinte_.