He inhaled again the odorous smoke of his pipe, and appeared to await a reply; but the captive remained silent and motionless.
“Speak, Christian, speak! There is yet time. At this price alone canst thou purchase thy life—by abjuring thy idolatry, of course.”
At this last sentence the young man raised his head—a noble blush mounted to his face.
“To denounce and apostatize,” said he; “is such thy clemency, pacha? Have thy executioners forgotten to tell thee who I am? Art thou, who hast thyself honored me with the title of Christian, ignorant of the duties which this title enjoins? Dost thou think that the disciples of Christ care so much for this mortal life, as to plunge their souls twice into ineffaceable pollution?” and his eye sparkled, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of sublime beauty.
“It is said,” said Djezzar, forming, from his apparent imperturbability, a fine contrast with the exaltation of the young Frank. “Thou wishest to die, and thou shalt die. But dost thou know for what an end I reserve thee?”
“Be it what it may, I am ready,” replied the captive.
“Then thou regrettest nothing of this mortal life?” and the pacha followed his look attentively, which he thought he would fix on Baïla.
“Nothing,” said the young man, with his eyes cast down, “but the not being assisted at my last moments by a priest of my religion.”
Djezzar appeared to reflect; a slight smile then contracted his lips.
“If thy wishes go no farther,” he said, “they shall be gratified.”
The Mangrebian reappeared at his call. A few moments afterward an old man, with a bald head, a long white beard, and a severe countenance, entered. He trembled violently at the sight of the pacha, as if he thought his last hour was come.
He was a poor Maronite monk, sent recently by the patriarch of Mount Libanus to replace the superior of the convent of Perkinik, who was dead. The pacha had, whilst passing on that day through this Catholic village, in the environs of Shivas, wished to make an exaction on this miserable convent, in which a few monks, covered with rags, lived by the labor of their hands, in the midst of a population as miserable as themselves. Djezzar, unable to extort the money which they had not, had carried off their superior with him, to detain him as a hostage until the sum demanded was paid.