[065]
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.
[066]
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. [067]Wherefore Jancofiore, knowing herself to
have been outdone, regretted long and bitterly the five hundred
florins of gold that she had refunded, and still more the thousand that
she had lent, repeating many a time to herself: Who with a Tuscan
has to do, Had need of eyesight quick and true. Thus, left with the
loss and the laugh against her, she discovered that there were others
as knowing as she.
