swered Giannotto, 'I
may now safely make known, since I find myself in the peril whereof I
was in fear, an I discovered it. He was and is yet, an he live, called
Arrighetto Capece, and my name is, not Giannotto, but Giusfredi, and I
doubt not a jot, an I were quit of this prison, but I might yet, by
returning to Sicily, have very high place there.'

[Footnote 108: The Ghibellines were the supporters of the Papal
faction against the Guelphs or adherents of the Emperor Frederick II.
of Germany. The cardinal struggle between the two factions took place
over the succession to the throne of Naples and Sicily, to which the
Pope appointed Charles of Anjou, who overcame and killed the reigning
sovereign Manfred, but was himself, through the machinations of the
Ghibellines, expelled from Sicily by the celebrated popular rising
known as the Sicilian Vespers.]

The honest man, without asking farther, reported Giannotto's words, as
first he had occasion, to Currado, who, hearing this,--albeit he
feigned to the gaoler to make light of it,--betook himself to Madam
Beritola and courteously asked her if she had had by Arrighetto a son
named Giusfredi. The lady answered, weeping, that, if the elder of her
two sons were alive, he would so be called and would be two-and-twenty
years old. Currado, hearing this, concluded that this must be he and
bethought himself that, were it so, he might at once do a great mercy
and take away his own and his daughter's shame by giving her to
Giannotto to wife; wherefore, sending privily for the latter, he
particularly examined him touching all his past life and finding, by
very manifest tokens, that he was indeed Giusfredi, son of Arrighetto
Capece, he said to him, 'Giannotto, thou knowest what and how great is
the wrong thou hast done me in the person of my daughter, whereas, I
having ever well and friendly entreated thee, it behoved thee, as a
servant should, still to study and do for my honour and interest; and
many there be who, hadst thou used them like as thou hast used me,
would have put thee to a shameful death, the which my clemency brooked
not. Now, if it be as thou tellest me, to wit, that thou art the son
of a man of condition and of a noble lady, I purpose, an thou thyself
be willing, to put an end to thy tribulations and relieving thee from
the misery and duresse wherein thou abidest, to reinstate at once
thine honour and mine own in their due stead. As thou knowest, Spina,
whom thou hast