Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/139

 And if you do not follow this order in three days, know, that you will be beheaded.

These words greatly upset Feristeno. "Sire," he replied to the King, "Your proposal seems truly incredible and unacceptable to me. And as for your harsh decision, know that I have never committed a murder and I do not deserve the death that you threaten me with. I inform you that I will not release my spouse to you nor any other man for as long as I live.

The King was deeply offended by this answer, because he had one of his brothers killed after the previous King, their father, prior to his passing, had imposed on him that his brother's son, had to marry the present King's own daughter. This misdeed of not obeying the command of his father, and then condemning his nephew and his own daughter who had to marry him, to lifelong imprisonment, deserved itself capital punishment. And Feristeno's answer implied that it was the King who deserved to die.

"Well," he said to himself, "because I killed my own brother, his words can only mean only that it is not he, but I, that must be condemned to capital punishment." So, filled with evil thoughts, he ordered his ministers that the young man be bound and imprisoned and early the next morning be thrown into the sea. Then he addressed the father of the girl, "And you," he said, "unless you are informed otherwise,