lived opposite to the palace,
he said to her, "What will you charge, good mother, to let me see the
King's daughter?" Then she asked a hundred ducats, and Fioravante,
putting his hand in his purse, instantly counted them out, one a-top of
the other. Thereupon the old woman took him up on the roof, where he
saw Cannetella drying her hair on a balcony. But--just as if her heart
had whispered to her--the maiden turned that way and saw the knave. She
rushed downstairs and ran to her father, crying out, "My lord, if you
do not this very instant make me a chamber with seven iron doors I am
lost and undone!"

"I will not lose you for such a trifle," said her father; "I would
pluck out an eye to gratify such a dear daughter!" So, no sooner said
than done, the doors were instantly made.

When Fioravante heard of this he went again to the old woman and said
to her, "What shall I give you now? Go to the King's house, under
pretext of selling pots of rouge, and make your way to the chamber of
the King's daughter. When you are there contrive to slip this little
piece of paper between the bed-clothes, saying, in an undertone, as you
place it there--

Let every one now soundly sleep,
But Cannetella awake shall keep."

So the old woman agreed for another hundred ducats, and she served him
faithfully.

Now, as soon as she had done this trick, such a sound sleep fell on the
people of the house that they seemed as if they all were dead.
Cannetella alone remained awake, and when she heard the doors bursting
open she began to cry aloud as if she were burnt, but no one heard her,
and there was no one to run to her aid. So Fioravante threw down all
the seven doors, and, entering her room, seized up Cannetella,
bed-clothes and all, to carry her off. But, as luck would have it, the
paper the old woman had put there fell on the ground, and the spell was
broken. All the people of the house awoke, and, hearing Cannetella's
cries, they ran--cats, dogs, and all--and, laying hold on the ogre,
quickly cut him in pieces like a pickled tunny. Thus he was caught in
the trap he had laid for poor Cannetella, learning to his cost that--

"No one suffereth greater pain
Than he who by his own sword is slain."

XVIII

CORVETTO

I once heard say that Juno went to Candia to find Falsehood. But if any
one were to ask me where fraud and hypocrisy might truly be found, I
should know of no other place to name than the Court, wher