Thus Carlo, having been soundly beaten[23] by his servants, his eyes being so discoloured and swollen from their lusty pummelling that he could scarcely see, ran towards the piazza, clamouring and complaining loudly of the ill-handling he had got from his own men. The town-guard, when he heard these shouts and lamentations, went towards him, and, marking his disfigured state and his face all bedaubed with dirt, took him for a madman. And since no one recognized him, the whole crowd began to mock at him, and to cry: ‘Give it to him, give it to him, for he is a lunatic.’ Then some hustled him, others spat in his face, and others took dust and cast it in his eyes; and they kept on maltreating him thus for a good space of time, until the uproar came to the ears of the prætor, who, having risen from his bed and gone to the window which overlooked the piazza, demanded what had happened to cause so great a tumult. One of the guards thereupon answered that there was a madman who was turning the piazza topsy-turvy, and the prætor gave order that he should be securely bound and brought before him, which command was forthwith carried out. Now Carlo, who up to this time had been the terror of all, finding himself thus bound and ill-treated and insulted, without a notion as to the cause of it, was utterly confounded in his mind, and broke out into so violent a rage that he wellnigh burst the bonds that held him. But as soon as he was brought before the prætor, the latter recognized him straightway as Carlo da Rimini, and at once set down the filthy condition of his prisoner as the work of Theodosia, for he was privy to the fact that Carlo was inflamed with passion for the girl. Therefore he at once began to use soft speech and to soothe Carlo, promising to make smart sharply those who had brought upon him such a shameful mischance. Carlo, who suspected not that his face was like that of a blackamoor, could not at first gather the purport of these words, but in the end, when it had been made known to him how filthy his condition was, how that he resembled a brute beast rather than a man, he, like the prætor, attributed his discomfiture to Theodosia, and, letting his rage have free course, he swore an oath that unless the prætor would punish her he would take revenge by his own hand. When the morning was come, the prætor sent for Theodosia, deeming that she had wrought this deed by magic arts. But she gave good heed to the plight in which she stood, and completely realized the great danger thereof; so she betook herself to a convent of nuns of holy life, where she abode secretly, serving God for the rest of her days with a cheerful heart.