nd
Saltariello were present--mice who were well used to the ways of the
world, and had lived for six years at a tavern of great resort hard by;
and they said to Aniello, "Be of good heart, comrade! matters will turn
out better than you imagine. You must know that one day, when we were
in a room in the hostelry of the Horn,' where the most famous men in
the world lodge and make merry, two persons from Hook Castle came in,
who, after they had eaten their fill and had seen the bottom of their
flagon, fell to talking of a trick they had played a certain old man of
Dark-Grotto, and how they had cheated him out of a stone of great
value, which one of them, named Jennarone, said he would never take
from his finger, that he might not run the risk of losing it as the old
man's daughter had done."

When Minecco Aniello heard this, he told the two mice that if they
would trust themselves to accompany him to the country where these
rogues lived and recover the ring for him, he would give them a good
lot of cheese and salt meat, which they might eat and enjoy with his
majesty the King. Then the two mice, after bargaining for a reward,
offered to go over sea and mountain, and, taking leave of his mousy
majesty, they set out.

After journeying a long way they arrived at Hook Castle, where the mice
told Minecco Aniello to remain under some trees on the brink of a
river, which like a leech drew the moisture from the land and
discharged it into the sea. Then they went to seek the house of the
magicians, and, observing that Jennarone never took the ring from his
finger, they sought to gain the victory by stratagem. So, waiting till
Night had dyed with purple grape-juice the sunburnt face of Heaven, and
the magicians had gone to bed and were fast asleep, Rudolo began to
nibble the finger on which the ring was, whereupon Jennarone, feeling
the smart, took the ring off and laid it on a table at the head of the
bed. But as soon as Saltariello saw this, he popped the ring into his
mouth, and in four skips he was off to find Minecco Aniello, who, with
even greater joy than a man at the gallows feels when a pardon arrives,
instantly turned the magicians into two jackasses; and, turning his
mantle over one of them, he bestrode him like a noble count, then he
loaded the other with cheese and bacon, and set off toward Deep-Hole,
where, having given presents to the King and his councillors, he
thanked them for all the good fortune he had received