part
I am ready, so I may serve thee, to pledge all these dresses, and my
person to boot, for as much as he will tend thee thereon; but how wilt
thou secure the balance?"

Salabaetto divined the motive that prompted her thus to accommodate him,
and that she was to lend the money herself; which suiting his purpose
well, he first of all thanked her, and then said that, being constrained
by necessity, he would not stand out against exorbitant terms, adding
that, as to the balance, he would secure it upon the merchandise that he
had at the dogana by causing it to be entered in the name of the lender;
but that he must keep the key of the storerooms, as well that he might be
able to shew the goods, if requested, as to make sure that none of them
should be tampered with or changed or exchanged. The lady said that this
was reasonable, and that 'twas excellent security. So, betimes on the
morrow, the lady sent for a broker, in whom she reposed much trust, and
having talked the matter over with him, gave him a thousand florins of
gold, which the broker took to Salabaetto, and thereupon had all that
Salabaetto had at the dogana entered in his name; they then had the
script and counterscript made out, and, the arrangement thus concluded,
went about their respective affairs. Salabaetto lost no time in getting
aboard a bark with his five hundred florins of gold, and being come to
Naples, sent thence a remittance which fully discharged his obligation to
his masters that had entrusted him with the stuffs: he also paid all that
he owed to Pietro dello Canigiano and all his other creditors, and made
not a little merry with Canigiano over the trick he had played the
Sicilian lady. He then departed from Naples, and being minded to have
done with mercantile affairs, betook him to Ferrara.

Jancofiore, surprised at first by Salabaetto's disappearance from
Palermo, waxed after a while suspicious; and, when she had waited fully
two months, seeing that he did not return, she caused the broker to break
open the store-rooms. And trying first of all the casks, she found them
full of sea-water, save that in each there was perhaps a hog's-head of
oil floating on the surface. Then undoing the bales, she found them all,
save two that contained stuffs, full of tow, and in short their whole
contents put together were not worth more than two hundred florins.
Wherefore Jancofiore, knowing herself to have been outdone, regretted
long and bitterly the fiv