resolved to get up, and let him understand that Gianni was there:  so she said to her husband:—­“Well well; so sayst thou; but I for my part shall never deem myself safe and secure, unless we exorcise it, seeing that thou art here.”  “Oh!” said Gianni, “and how does one exorcise it?” “That,” quoth the lady, “I know right well; for t’other day, when I went to Fiesole for the pardoning, one of those anchoresses, the saintliest creature, my Gianni, God be my witness, knowing how much afraid I am of the bogey, taught me a holy and salutary orison, which she said she had tried many a time before she was turned anchoress, and always with success.  God wot, I should never have had courage to try it alone; but as thou art here, I propose that we go exorcise it together.”  Gianni made answer that he was quite of the same mind; so up they got, and stole to the door, on the outside of which Federigo, now suspicious, was still waiting.  And as soon as they were there:—­“Now,” quoth the lady to Gianni, “thou wilt spit, when I tell thee.”  “Good,” said Gianni.  Whereupon the lady began her orison, saying:—­

  “Bogey, bogey that goest by night,
  Tail erect, thou cam’st, tail erect, take thy flight
  Hie thee to the garden, and the great peach before,
  Grease upon grease, and droppings five score
  Of my hen shalt thou find: 
  Set the flask thy lips to,
  Then away like the wind,
  And no scathe unto me or my Gianni do.”

And when she had done:—­“Now, Gianni,” quoth she, “spit”:  and Gianni spat.

There was no more room for jealousy in Federigo’s mind as he heard all this from without; nay, for all his disappointment, he was like to burst with suppressed laughter, and when Gianni spat, he muttered under his breath:—­“Now out with thy teeth.”  The lady, having after this fashion thrice exorcised the bogey, went back to bed with her husband.  Federigo, disappointed of the supper that he was to have had with her, and apprehending the words of the orison aright, hied him to the garden, and having found the two capons and the wine and the eggs at the foot of the peach-tree, took them home with him, and supped very comfortably.  And many a hearty laugh had he and the lady over the exorcism during their subsequent intercourse.

Now, true it is that some say that the lady had in fact turned the ass’s head towards Fiesole, but that a husbandman, passing through the vineyard, had given it a blow with his stick, whereby it had swung round, and remained fronting Florence, and so it was that Federigo thought that he was invited, and came to the house, and that the lady’s orison was on this wise:—­

  “Bogey, a God’s name, away thee hie,
  For whoe’er turned the ass’s head, ’twas not I: 
  Another it was, foul fall his eyne;
  And here am I with Gianni mine.”

Wherefore Federigo was fain to take himself off, having neither slept nor supped.