Arabic

“This lady,” said the Count, speaking to Ali in the Arabic language, “is desirous that her son should thank you for saving both their lives; but the boy refuses, saying you are too ugly.”

Without having been in the school of the Abbé Faria, the worthy master of La Jeune Amélie (the name of the Genoese tartan) knew a smattering of all the tongues spoken on the shores of that large lake called the Mediterranean, from the Arabic to the Provençal, and this, while it spared him interpreters, persons always troublesome and frequently indiscreet, gave him great facilities of communication, either with the vessels he met at sea, with the small boats sailing along the coast, or with the people without name, country, or occupation, who are always seen on the quays of seaports, and who live by hidden and mysterious means which we must suppose to be a direct gift of Providence, as they have no visible means of support.

The count said a word in Arabic to Ali, and the horses went on at great speed.

“It is not your fault, my good Ali,” said the count in the Arabic language, and with a gentleness none would have thought him capable of showing, either in voice or face—“it is not your fault.