Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/351

Rh would at this moment have been a widow." So saying he gave orders that justice should take its course.

When Jennariello heard this sentence, and saw himself so ill-rewarded for doing good, he knew not what to think or to do; if he said nothing, bad—if he spoke, worse; and whatever he should do was a fall from the tree into the wolf's mouth: if he remained silent, he should lose his head under an axe,—if he spoke, he should end his days in a stone. At length, after various resolutions, he made up his mind to disclose the matter to his brother; and since he must die at all events, he thought it better to tell his brother the truth, and to end his days with the title of an innocent man, than to keep the truth to himself and be sent out of the world as a traitor. So sending word to the king that he had something to say of importance to his state, he was led into his presence; where he first made a long preamble of the love he had always borne him; then he went on to tell of the deception he had practised on Liviella, in order to give him pleasure, and then what he had heard from the doves about the falcon, and how, to avoid being turned to marble, he had brought it him, and without revealing the secret had killed it, in order not to see him without eyes.

As he spoke, he felt his legs stiffen and turn to