Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/22

 At this point I could rightly condemn you to death for this crime. Nevertheless, since I am naturally more inclined to leniency than to severity, I have decided, that before you are put to death, you recover the stolen camel forthwith. Unless you do this without delay, you will be shamefully put to death early tomorrow as is befitting for brigands."

The young men heard the words, and the decision of the Emperor which was rather painful, but nevertheless they were consoled by their conscience and their innocence and answered him as follows, “Sire, we are three wayfarers on a peregrination, which we are undertaking for no other reason than to see different countries and the wonders of this world. When we arrived in your kingdom, we met not far from this city the present camel driver, who asked us if by chance we had encountered on the road a camel which he had lost. Whereas we had not seen the camel, nevertheless we saw many indications of the lost animal and replied to him jokingly that we had encountered it. And in order to make him believe our words, we gave him the information about his camel, which the camel driver mentioned to you. As it so happened, the information was true and because he was unable to find his camel on the road, we indicated to him that we were unfairly accused of having stolen his animal.