Patrañas. Busk Rachel Harriette

fell to Josefa’s lot to be bought by a rich renegade of Tunis, whom she served under the name of Pedro, a name she deemed she had a certain right to take. The renegade was much pleased with her soft discreet manners, and general superiority and uprightness of character; and soon advanced her to the post of steward over his household, having her first instructed in the Arabic tongue. Things went smoothly enough for some time; but when she had been in this service about three years, it happened that one day, when the master was gone out hunting, a maid-servant, who held a high place in the household, and whose forwardness the supposed Pedro had often noticed, came and made a free confession of an irrepressible affection for him, and entreated him to marry her. Josefa, much annoyed at the incident, could only answer that it was impossible: for she had not confidence in the girl to trust her with her secret.

      The enraged girl, furious at the repulse, swore by Mahomet to be revenged; accordingly, no sooner was the master returned, than she went to him with every token of distress and indignation, and accused Pedro of abusing his power as steward of the house, and having sought to force her to marry him although she had resisted because he was a Christian, and the law of Mahomet forbade such an union.

      The master, highly incensed at the perfidy of the slave he had treated with so much forbearance and indulgence, ordered him to be thrown into a dungeon and starved to death, without hearing any defence.

      Such would indeed have been Josefa’s fate, but that one of the slaves who respected her brought her daily the scanty means of subsistence she was able to secure. At the end of several days the master, coming to the dungeon to see what had befallen, was greatly provoked to find her not only alive but comparatively well, and took up a cord to administer summary chastisement.

      This indignity was more than Josefa could endure; to avert it, she begged him to listen to her; told him she could easily prove the falsity of the accusation under which she was suffering, seeing she was a woman.

      The master was delighted to hear the exculpation of his favourite slave, and immediately had her released and reinstated in her authority, and the shameless accuser consigned to the same prison.

      From this time he continued to extend his favour and confidence towards her: of all the people about him who shared his pleasures and his riches, she was the only one to whom he could talk of the absorbing agony of his soul, the remorse for having renounced his religion and become a renegade. The result was that he one day announced to her that he had made arrangements for realizing the greater part of his fortune, which he divided in two parts, one of which he bestowed on her; with the other he had resolved to go to Rome in pilgrimage and endow a shrine, where he would pass the remainder of his days in prayer and penance.