ce you go about seeking to give me pleasure. Truly, if
you had brought me a costly treasure, it could not have given me
greater delight than this falcon." And just as he was going to take it
in his hand, Jennariello quickly drew a large knife which he carried at
his side and cut off its head. At this deed the King stood aghast, and
thought his brother mad to have done such a stupid act; but not to
interrupt the joy at his arrival, he remained silent. Presently,
however, he saw the horse, and on asking his brother whose it was,
heard that it was his own. Then he felt a great desire to ride him, and
just as he was ordering the stirrup to beheld, Jennariello quickly cut
off the horse's legs with his knife. Thereat the King waxed wrath, for
his brother seemed to have done it on purpose to vex him, and his
choler began to rise. However, he did not think it a right time to show
resentment, lest he should poison the pleasure of the bride at first
sight, whom he could never gaze upon enough.

When they arrived at the royal palace, he invited all the lords and
ladies of the city to a grand feast, at which the hall seemed just like
a riding-school full of horses, curveting and prancing, with a number
of foals in the form of women. But when the ball was ended, and a great
banquet had been despatched, they all retired to rest.

Jennariello, who thought of nothing else than to save his brother's
life, hid himself behind the bed of the bridal pair; and as he stood
watching to see the dragon come, behold at midnight a fierce dragon
entered the chamber, who sent forth flames from his eyes and smoke from
his mouth, and who, from the terror he carried in his look, would have
been a good agent to sell all the antidotes to fear in the
apothecaries' shops. As soon as Jennariello saw the monster, he began
to lay about him right and left with a Damascus blade which he had
hidden under his cloak; and he struck one blow so furiously that it cut
in halves a post of the King's bed, at which noise the King awoke, and
the dragon disappeared.

When Milluccio saw the sword in his brother's hand, and the bedpost cut
in two, he set up a loud cry, "Help here! hola! help! This traitor of a
brother is come to kill me!" Whereupon, hearing the noise, a number of
servants who slept in the antechamber came running up, and the King
ordered Jennariello to be bound, and sent him the same hour to prison.

The next morning, as soon as the Sun opened his bank to