"You excite my curiosity," said the Duchess. "Cannot you invent some excuse to bring him here?" "Certainly," said the Cardinal, who was aiming at this very point. "There could be no better method than for me to tell him you had promised me your picture. This would draw him hither quite easily, after such representations as I should make to him; for you must know, Sebastiano is becoming exceeding coy and difficult, and will only on much importunity be prevailed on, now, to paint a portrait. It is really the branch in which he excels, and by which he will be known to posterity; but he is slow and irresolute in his execution, and his taste chiefly inclines him to large historical pieces, in which he is excelled by Michael Angelo and Raffaelle. I beseech you, let me send him to paint your portrait. You will be repaid for your complaisance by becoming acquainted with a really great artist." "So let it be, then," said the Duchess. "With regard to my Moorish girl, he may introduce her in the background if he will. Beautiful she is, but the crossest patch at times! I pity her, and humour, and perhaps spoil her a little, yet I shrink from her sometimes, for we hardly seem of the same flesh and blood." "Is she converted?" inquired the Cardinal. "Baptized," said the Duchess, "but she seems utterly unimpressible as to Christian doctrine. Confess she will not, and when we endeavour to enforce its obligation on her, she answers us in her Arabic jargon, 'I do not understand.'" "Is it safe to have her about you?" said the Cardinal. "I know not that there is any harm in her," said the Duchess, "and she can be very ingratiating when she likes; but I own, a horrible thought crossed my mind when she and I were escaping through the caverns. 'What if she should have brought Barbarossa on us?'" "That is quite possible," said the Cardinal, gravely. "Has she any confederates hereabouts, think you, among her own people?" "The only other Moor in my establishment is a poor boy whose tongue has been cut out. His own people thus punished him, when he fell into their hands, for having come over to us; he escaped from them, and knows too well his own interest to betray us. He is in my stables." "I do not altogether like this," said De Medici, meditatively; "it would be well to induce the girl to confess, even by a little wholesome torture; for as long as she is unshackeled by Christian obligations, you have no hold on her." "Torture, however," said Giulia, "is a course I particularly dislike." They were now riding into the castle court-yard; and, as the day was very warm, she was thirsty, and called for a glass of iced water. It was brought her by Cynthia; and at the moment she appeared with the goblet on a salver, a large Spanish bloodhound, belonging to Alfonso Gonzaga, sprang at her throat.