is as perfect as it was at my birth. My fortune has brought me
into these countries, whence I hoped to bring away many captives, but
where I am myself a captive. I do not say of this captivity in which you
see me, that, after all the great experiences of my life, favorable and
adverse, I had believed that I was strong enough to parry the thrusts of
fortune; but I have found that my heart was tried and afflicted in my
imprisonment, because the great beauty of this new Emperor overwhelmed
me in the moment that my eyes looked upon him. I trusted in my
greatness, and that immense wealth which excites and unites so many,
that, if I would turn to your religion, I might gain him for a husband;
but when I came into the presence of this lovely Empress, I regarded it
as certain that they belonged to each other by their equal rank; and
that argument, which showed the vanity of my thoughts, brought me to the
determination in which I now stand. And since Eternal Fortune has taken
the direction of my passion, I, throwing all my own strength into
oblivion, as the wise do in those affairs which have no remedy, seek, if
it please you, to take for my husband some other man, who may be the son
of a king, to be of such power as a good knight ought to have; and I
will become a Christian. For, as I have seen the ordered order of your
religion, and the great disorder of all others, I have seen that it is
clear that the law which you follow must be the truth, while that which
we follow is lying and falsehood.'

"When the Emperor had heard all this, embracing her with a smile, he
said, 'Queen Calafia, my good friend, till now you have had from me
neither word nor argument; for my condition is such that I cannot permit
my eyes to look, without terrible hatred, upon any but those who are in
the holy law of truth, nor wish well to such as are out of it. But now
that the Omnipotent Lord has had such mercy on you as to give you such
knowledge that you become His servant, you excite in me at once the same
love as if the King, my father, had begotten us both. And as for this
you ask, I will give you, by my troth, a knight who is even more
complete in valor and in lineage than you have demanded.'

"Then, taking by the hand Talanque, his cousin, the son of the King of
Sobradisa,--very large he was of person, and very handsome withal,--he
said,--

"'Queen, here you see one of my cousins, son of the King whom you here
see,--the brother of the King my fa