Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/84

60 terrible fury. Alas, how my heart beats, for I foresee an evil day!"

"You coward!" answered Ceccone; "let little Dominick alone, and I will hit him with a ball.

As Ceccone was speaking, the ogre came, planted his ladder, and began to climb up; but Ceccone, taking aim at him, shot out one of his eyes, and laid him at full length on the ground, like a pear dropped from the tree: then he went out of the tower, and cut off the ogre's head with the big knife he carried about him, just as if it had been new-made cheese. Thereupon they took the head with great joy to the king, who rejoiced at recovering his daughter, for he had repented a hundred times having given her to an ogre. And not many days after, the king procured a handsome husband for Porziella, and he heaped riches on the seven sons and their mother, who had delivered his daughter from such a wretched life. Nor did he omit to call himself a thousand times to blame for his conduct to Porziella, and having out of mere caprice exposed her to such peril, without thinking what an error he commits who goes looking for wolf's eggs.