and proud. When she was a child, they beat her
unmercifully because she refused to beg. As she grew older, she had a
most cruel enemy in her beauty, which was the cause of much of her
misery. Subjected to temptations to which she saw young girls around her
yield without a thought, she escaped only by a miracle, but it brought
down upon her, anger, hatred and cruel vengeance. She increased these by
refusing to choose a husband from among the young men with whom she had
been reared.

They resolved to compel her to marry one of her companions. She fled,
but they succeeded in recapturing her without much difficulty. They then
shut her up, telling her that she should remain a prisoner until she
promised obedience. It was the most trying time of her whole life. Beset
on every side, beaten, buffetted, tyrannized over, fed on food that was
only fit for a dog, she would certainly have died in the struggle had
not destiny sent her a protector in the person of Borachio, a young man
about twenty-five years of age, whose heart was touched by her
misfortunes.

He was so bold, so strong and so terrible in his anger that the whole
tribe stood in awe of him. He took compassion on their victim and
compelled her tormentors to cease their persecution. Tiepoletta was not
ungrateful, and she afterward married her preserver to the great disgust
of the young girls of the tribe, with whom Borachio was a great
favorite.

According to custom, the queen solemnized the marriage without delay;
and at nineteen Tiepoletta had a master whose coarse tenderness was
sweet, indeed, in comparison with the harsh treatment to which she had
been subjected heretofore. But this happiness was destined to be of
short duration. Borachio was found dead upon the roadside one morning,
his breast pierced by eight dagger thrusts. Envious of his beauty, his
authority and his lovely young wife, one of his comrades had
assassinated him and made Tiepoletta a widow some time before she was to
become a mother. Six months went by, during which they seemed to respect
her grief. Then, in a cave near the Pont du Gard, she gave birth to a
daughter. The very next evening, while she was lying, half asleep, on
some straw on the floor of the cave, with her child beside her, she
overheard a conversation that was going on outside. They were talking of
her. She listened eagerly. Picture her fear and horror when she heard
them scheming to deprive her of her infant and then drive her fr