Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/182

156 branches, leaves, flowers and fruit, were all of glistening gold; at the sight of which the king was in an ecstasy of amazement, and cried aloud with joy.

But when Cola Matteo was sent by the serpent to the king to demand the performance of his promise, the king said, "Fair and easy, I must first have something else, if he would have my daughter; and it is that he make all the walls and the ground in the orchard to be of precious stones."

When the gardener told this to the serpent, he made answer, "Go tomorrow morning and gather up all the bits of broken crockery-ware you can find, and throw them on the walks, and on the wall of the orchard, for we will not let this difficulty stand in our way." As soon therefore as the Night, having stood by and backed the robbers, is banished from the sky, and goes about collecting the faggots of twilight. Cola Matteo took a basket under his arm, and went about collecting bits of tiles, lids and bottoms of pipkins, pieces of plates and dishes, handles of jugs, spouts of pitchers; picking up all the spoilt, broken, flawed, cracked lamps, and all the fragments of pottery of every sort he could find in his way. And when he had done all that the serpent had told him, there was to be seen the whole orchard mantled with emeralds and chalcedonies, and coated with rubies and carbuncles, in such sort, that the lustre sequestered