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 a benefactress.

Presently he rose and went to walk with her in the garden, and sitting
down to rest in a thicket of myrtles, he drew the young widow on his
knee and manifested his gratitude by a thousand caresses.

He found her not insensible to his efforts and spent some hours by her
side drowned in amorous delight. But soon he grew pensive, and suddenly
asked his hostess what month they were in, and what day of the month
precisely it then was.

And when she told him, he fell to groaning and lamenting sore, finding
it lacked but twenty-four short hours of a full year since he had
received the five hundred ducats of Eliezer the Jew. The thought of
breaking his promise and exposing his pledge to the reproaches of the
Circumcised was intolerable to him. Signora Loreta inquiring the reason