Page:Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.djvu/82

 In this way, the female looked like the male, and the male resembled the female, who is naturally without the horn.

When the King saw such a shot and knowing therefore that he could no longer deny his wife to have her name engraved on the coins which he somehow did not want to do because of his honor, he was overcome with great anger as he saw that she surpassed him in valor and intelligence and decided to find a way to let her die. But he did not reveal his thoughts for the time being and returned to his tent and he secretly ordered one of his counselors to enter the tent of the Queen the following night, tie her up and take her to the royal city to throw her immediately to a hundred wild and furious dogs which he kept at night in the seraglio of the castle so she would be devoured. The order was promptly carried out by the counselor and he covertly led the miserable young woman to the royal city to have her devoured by the dogs as the King had cruelly ordered.

But his cruel thought failed because the dogs recognized her, because when she became his wife, she used to feed them as part of her familiar duties. They greatly caressed her and she removed a stone over the opening of a trench and she fled outside of the city, unharmed and safe. And she walked until sunrise and in a village not far from the city, she reached the house of a poor peasant who made a living for his family with a monkey.