at unawares,
made off with her prize. Madam Beritola, having made an end of her
diurnal lamentation, returned to the sea-shore, as she was used to do,
to visit her children, but found none there; whereat she first
marvelled and after, suddenly misdoubting her of that which had
happened, cast her eyes out to sea and saw the galley at no great
distance, towing the little ship after it; whereby she knew but too
well that she had lost her children, as well as her husband, and
seeing herself there poor and desolate and forsaken, unknowing where
she should ever again find any of them, she fell down aswoon upon the
strand, calling upon her husband and her children. There was none
there to recall her distracted spirits with cold water or other
remedy, wherefore they might at their leisure go wandering whither it
pleased them; but, after awhile, the lost senses returning to her
wretched body, in company with tears and lamentations, she called long
upon her children and went a great while seeking them in every cavern.
At last, finding all her labour in vain and seeing the night coming
on, she began, hoping and knowing not what, to be careful for herself
and departing the sea-shore, returned to the cavern where she was wont
to weep and bemoan herself.

She passed the night in great fear and inexpressible dolour and the
new day being come and the hour of tierce past, she was fain,
constrained by hunger, for that she had not supped overnight, to
browse upon herbs; and having fed as best she might, she gave herself,
weeping, to various thoughts of her future life. Pondering thus, she
saw a she-goat enter a cavern hard by and presently issue thence and
betake herself into the wood; whereupon she arose and entering whereas
the goat had come forth, found there two little kidlings, born belike
that same day, which seemed to her the quaintest and prettiest things
in the world. Her milk being yet undried from her recent delivery, she
tenderly took up the kids and set them to her breast. They refused not
the service, but sucked her as if she had been their dam and
thenceforth made no distinction between the one and the other.
Wherefore, herseeming she had found some company in that desert place,
and growing no less familiar with the old goat than with her little
ones, she resigned herself to live and die there and abode eating of
herbs and drinking water and weeping as often as she remembered her of
her husband and children and of her past