“Well didst thou deserve,” replied the master, “to be thus scoffed at and jeered, for a young magician should never play tricks at a table like a juggler to amuse fools. But thou hast been sufficiently punished, and to please thee I will give thee a fine present. And if thou canst not make bread come, thou shalt at least have the power to make it and other things disappear. I will give thee this vase of bronze. It is but small, as thou seest, but tell any object, however large, to disappear in it, then the vase will swallow it. Thou shalt keep for thyself in secret a house somewhere, and whatever the vase may swallow thou wilt find it in the house, however distant thou mayst be from it. Only say, ‘Go into the vase!’ and by the vase it will be swallowed up. But thou shalt never use it to steal, or for any dishonest purpose. So long as thou art honest it will serve, and none shall rob thee of it. And if that should come to pass, call to it and it will return to thee.”
Then Dorione took the vase, and thanked the grand master Virgil. After a time the scholar went on a long journey. Dorione possessed a small castle in a remote place in the mountains of Tuscany, and in it was a secret vault. “There,” he said, “I will send all that the vase may swallow. Many a thing may be come by honestly, if one knew how to send it away and where to put it.
“‘He who hath a cage, I’ve heard,
In time will surely get a bird.’”
It came to pass that he became the secretary of a certain lord, who, like many of the brave gentry of his time, was ever at war with somebody, plundering or being plundered, every one in his turn, as fortune favoured.
“Up on the top of the hill to-day,
Down in the dale to-morrow;
Oft in the morning happy and gay,
After a night of sorrow;
For some must fall that others may rise,
And the swallow goes chirping as she flies.”
One evening his master heard a trumpet afar, and, looking forth, seemed suddenly startled, like a man in great alarm. Pointing to a splendid suit of armour, he said:
“Seest thou that armour, Dorione? It is worth ten thousand crowns, and I would give ten thousand it were this instant in hell. I took it in a raid from the Grand Duke, and he will be here in ten minutes with all his men. If he finds the armour I shall lose my head. And there, too, is an iron chest full of gold and jewels—all plunder, and all in evidence against me.”
“If you will give it to me,” answered Dorione, “I will make it all vanish in an instant.”
“Yea, I give it with all my heart; but be quick about it, for the Grand Duke and his soldiers are at the gate, and I feel the rope round my neck!”
Then Dorione brought his vase in a minute, and uttered the conjuration: