“Never master had a page so kind, so duteous, diligent, so tender on occasion, so deft and careful,” pleaded Lucius. “He hath done no Briton harm, though he hath served a Roman. Save him, sir, and spare no blood beside.”
Lucius’s generous plea was scarcely needed, for Cymbeline, touched by some deep feeling which he could not explain, had already been won over to the boy’s side, and now not only granted him his life, but said he might ask what favour he chose, even if it were to demand the noblest prisoner taken.
Lucius naturally expected that Fidele would take this opportunity to beg for his master’s life, but Imogen had seen Iachimo standing among the other prisoners, and noticing on his finger the diamond ring which she had given to Leonatus, she begged as her favour of the King that Iachimo should be bidden to say of whom he had received the ring.
Iachimo, who had long bitterly repented of his unworthy deed, now made a true confession of all that had happened, lavishing praise on Leonatus and his peerless wife, and heaping all the blame upon himself. Leonatus, who had been standing in the background, unable to contain himself when he heard how cruelly he had been tricked, would gladly have killed Iachimo on the spot, and then died, himself, with grief and shame.
“O Imogen! My queen, my life, my wife!” he cried, frantic with despair at the tragedy he had himself wrought. “O Imogen, Imogen, Imogen!”
But, happily, the calamity was not past remedy. Imogen herself was at hand, and soon everything was put right. Belarius restored to Cymbeline the two boys stolen in infancy, and in the joy of finding them again, Cymbeline pardoned the offender.
“I lost my children,” he said; “if these be they, I know not how to wish a pair of worthier sons.”
The young Princes welcomed with rapture their dear young comrade Fidele, whom they had mourned as dead, and who was now given back to them as their own beloved sister.
To Caius Lucius, the Roman General, Cymbeline, with royal generosity, announced that though the victor, he would henceforth pay to Augustus Cæsar the rightful tribute he demanded, which his wicked Queen had dissuaded him from doing.
The poor soldier whom Cymbeline was desirous of thanking turned out to be no other than Leonatus, his own son-in-law.