OF PAWEFULL ADVENTURES. 33!
lonius, saying: May it please your grace to vnderstand that we haue certaine pyrates at the gallowes ready to be executed, and it appeareth that they be those that stole away the lady Tharsia your daughter from Tharsus, and sold her to the bawd at Machilenta. Which when we perceiu-ed, we thought it good to know your graces pleasure what shall be doone with them. Apollonius thanked them-, and willed the pirats to be brought before him, & examined them diligently, and found that they were the same men indeede that had presented Tharsias life. And he gaue great thankes vnto God and them, and imbraced them, & willingly pardoned them their lives.
And for that he knew that the sinister means which they hitherto had insued was caused most by constraint, for want of other trade or abilitie to Hue by, he therefore made them all knights, and gaue them plenty of gold and siluer, and indowed them also with great possessions.
THE TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER.
How Apollonius had a yoong sonne and heife by his wife Lucina, likewise of Apollonius age, and how he died: with some other accidents thereunto incident.
WHILE king Apollonius thus passed foorth his time in rewarding his friends which had doone him pleasure in his aduersitie, the part of a thankeful and good natured man, and also vnto his enemies in min-istring iustice with mercie, which is the duetie o'f a vertuous prince, the queene Lucina in the meane season concerned childe, and grewe euery daie bigger bellied then other. And when the time came that she attended for a good houre, she was deliuered of a