Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/428

394 with the hair-pin? Know you that this is the pretty dove which you ordered to be killed and cooked in a stewpan? What say you now? it is all your own doing, and one who does ill may expect ill in return." So saying he ordered the slave to be seized and cast alive on to a large burning pile of wood, and her ashes were thrown from the top of the castle to all the winds of heaven, verifying the truth of the saying, that

"He who sows thorns should not go barefoot."

All sat listening attentively to Ciommetella's story; and some praised the skill with which she had related it, whilst others murmured at her indiscretion, saying that she ought not in the presence of the Princess slave to have exposed to blame the ill deeds of another slave, and run the risk of stopping the game. But Lucia sat upon thorns, and kept turning and twisting herself about all the time the story was related; insomuch that the restlessness of her body betrayed the storm which was in her heart, at seeing in the history of another slave the exact image of her own tricks. Gladly would she have dismissed the whole company, but that, owing to the desire which the doll had given her to hear stories, she could no more do without them than a man