Pastorella heard the noise, and lay trembling lest some new dreadful thing had come upon her. But when, again and again, Calidore called her name, her heart jumped for joy, and she ran out of the darkness right into her true knight’s arms. And Calidore threw his arms about her, and kissed her a thousand times.
The robbers had waked up, hearing the crash of the door, and the yell of the robber as he died, and Calidore’s cry of ‘Pastorella.’ Like a swarm of angry wasps they flocked to the door of the cave, but in the doorway stood Calidore with his sword, and slew every man who dared to try to kill him. He slew and slew until the doorway was blocked with dead bodies. Then those robbers that still lived were afraid to touch him, and went away to rest until morning.
Calidore also rested, and when daylight came he found amongst the dead robbers a better sword than the one he already had, and with that in his hand he walked out of the cave.
The robbers were lying in wait for him, and rushed at him from every side when he appeared.
But Calidore was like a lion in a herd of deer. With his sharp sword he thrust and smote, until the robbers who did not lie dead around him fled in terror, and hid themselves in their caves.
Then Calidore went back to where he had left Pastorella, and cheered and comforted her. Together they went through the robbers’ caves, and took the richest of their treasures of gold and precious jewels. All the sheep they gave to Corydon, who gladly drove them away.
Then Calidore took Pastorella to the castle of one of his friends, a noble knight, whose gentle wife was called Claribel.
Calidore had to go to hunt the monster that he was pursuing when he first met the shepherds, so he left Pastorella with the knight and his lady. Pastorella was so gentle and beautiful that they loved her for her own sweet sake, as well as for Calidore’s, and cared for her as if she was their own daughter.
An old woman who had always been Claribel’s maid was given as maid to Pastorella.
One morning as this woman helped her to dress, she noticed on Pastorella’s white breast a curious little mark. It was as if some one had painted on the fair skin a tiny purple rose with open petals. The old woman ran to her mistress, Claribel.