ich he disposed of in the cities
of the Adriatic shore to great advantage. Then, with a fresh cargo
aboard, he set sail for Constantinople, where he bought carpets,
perfumes, peacock feathers, ivory and ebony. These goods his agents
exchanged along the coasts of Dalmatia for building timber, which the
Venetians had contracted for from him in advance. By these means, in six
months' time, he had multiplied tenfold the amount the Jew had lent him.

But one day that he was taking his diversion with some Greek women,
aboard his vessel, which lay in the Bosphorus, having put out too far to
sea, he was captured by pirates and carried prisoner to Egypt, though,
by rare good fortune, his gold and merchandise were in a safe place all
the while. The pirates sold him to a Saracen lord, who putting him in
fetters, sent him afield to till the wheat, which grows very finely in
that country. Fabio offered his master to pay a heavy ransom, but the
Paynim's daughter, who loved him and was fain to bring him to the end
she desired, over-persuaded her father not to let him go at any price.
Reduced to the necessity of trusting to himself alone for release, he
filed his irons with the tools given him for tilling the ground, made
good his escape to the Nile and threw himself into a boat. Casting
loose, he got to the sea, which was not far off, and when on the point
of death from thirst and hunger, was rescued by a Spanish vessel bound
for Genoa. But, after keeping her course a week, the ship was caught in
a storm which drove her on the coast of Dalmatia. In making the shore,
she was wrecked on a reef. All the crew were drowned except Fabio, who
reached the beach after much difficulty, clinging to a hen-coop. There
he lay senseless, but was presently succoured by a handsome widow, named
Loreta, whose house was upon the seashore. She had him carried to it,
put him to bed in her own chamber, watched over him and lavished every
care for his recovery.

On coming to himself, he smelt the perfume of myrtles and roses, and
looking out of window saw a garden that descended in successive
declivities to the sea. Signora Loreta, standing at his bed's head, took
up her viol and began playing a tender air.

Fabio, ravished with gratitude and pleasure, fell to kissing the lady's
hands a thousand times over. He thanked her earnestly, assuring her he
was less touched by the saving of his life than by the fact of his owing
his recovery to the pains of so fair