vail to undeceive them; for not a few
Italians had carried the report home with them; among whom there were
some who made bold to say that they had seen Messer Torello d'Istria's
dead body, and had been present at its interment. Which rumour coming to
the ears of his lady and his kinsfolk, great indeed, nay, immeasurable
was the distress that it occasioned not only to them, but to all that had
known him. The mode and measure of his lady's grief, her mourning, her
lamentation, 'twere tedious to describe. Enough that, after some months
spent in almost unmitigated tribulation, her sorrow shewed signs of
abatement; whereupon, suit being made for her hand by some of the
greatest men of Lombardy, her brothers and other kinsfolk began to
importune her to marry again. Times not a few, and with floods of tears,
she refused; but, overborne at last, she consented to do as they would
have her, upon the understanding that she was to remain unmarried until
the term for which she had bound herself to Messer Torello was fulfilled.

Now the lady's affairs being in this posture at Pavia, it befell that
some eight days or so before the time appointed for her marriage, Messer
Torello one day espied in Alexandria one that he had observed go with the
Genoese ambassadors aboard the galley that took them to Genoa; wherefore
he called him, and asked him what sort of a voyage they had had, and when
they had reached Genoa. "My lord," replied the other, "the galley made
but a sorry voyage of it, as I learned in Crete, where I remained; for
that, while she was nearing Sicily, there arose a terrible gale from the
North that drove her on to the shoals of Barbary, and never a soul
escaped, and among the rest my two brothers were lost." Which report
believing--and 'twas indeed most true--and calling to mind that in a few
days the term that he had asked of his wife would be fulfilled, and
surmising that there could be no tidings of him at Pavia, Messer Torello
made no question but that the lady was provided with another husband;
whereby he sank into such a depth of woe that he lost all power to eat,
and betook him to his bed and resigned himself to die. Which when
Saladin, by whom he was most dearly beloved, learned, he came to him, and
having plied him with many and most instant entreaties, learned at length
the cause of his distress and sickness; and, having chidden him not a
little that he had not sooner apprised him thereof, he besought him to
put on