And these two tended him, and cheered him both With food and raiment, and those soft attentions, Which are--as I must own--of female growth, And have ten thousand delicate inventions: They made a most superior mess of broth, A thing which poesy but seldom mentions, But the best dish that e'er was cooked since Homer's Achilles ordered dinner for new comers.[151] CXXIV. I'll tell you who they were, this female pair, Lest they should seem Princesses in disguise; Besides, I hate all mystery, and that air Of clap-trap, which your recent poets prize; And so, in short, the girls they really were They shall appear before your curious eyes, Mistress and maid; the first was only daughter Of an old man, who lived upon the water. CXXV. A fisherman he had been in his youth, And still a sort of fisherman was he; But other speculations were, in sooth, Added to his connection with the sea, Perhaps not so respectable, in truth: A little smuggling, and some piracy, Left him, at last, the sole of many masters Of an ill-gotten million of piastres. CXXVI. A fisher, therefore, was he,--though of men, Like Peter the Apostle, and he fished For wandering merchant-vessels, now and then, And sometimes caught as many as he wished; The cargoes he confiscated, and gain He sought in the slave-market too, and dished Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade, By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made. CXXVII. He was a Greek, and on his isle had built (One of the wild and smaller Cyclades) A very handsome house from out his guilt, And there he lived exceedingly at ease; Heaven knows what cash he got, or blood he spilt, A sad old fellow was he, if you please; But this I know, it was a spacious building, Full of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding. CXXVIII. He had an only daughter, called Haidée, The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles; Besides, so very beautiful was she, Her dowry was as nothing to her smiles: Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree She grew to womanhood, and between whiles Rejected several suitors, just to learn How to accept a better in his turn. CXXIX. And walking out upon the beach, below The cliff, towards sunset, on that day she found, Insensible,--not dead, but nearly so,-- Don Juan, almost famished, and half drowned; But being naked, she was shocked, you know, Yet deemed herself in common pity bound, As far as in her lay, "to take him in, A stranger" dying--with so white a skin. CXXX.