The Duchess of Trajetto. Anne Manning
of a strong baronial castle; and beyond them lay the little town of Fondi, consisting of a single street built on the Appian Way. Beyond it, a lake, a forest, a marsh, stretching down to the blue brimming Mediterranean. The little town seemed steeped in sleep: the silence was intense.
All at once, a low, regular sound jarred on the Duchess's quickened ear.
"That's a very unaccountable noise," thought she to herself. "I wonder what it is. People are about, who ought to be in their beds. If it continues, I shall ring up the Mother-of-the-maids. Now it has stopped. I wish I were not so wakeful—how tiresome it is!
"What could induce Isabella to write me that disagreeable letter? I fancy the Prince of Sulmona had a hand in it. It is very hard, after the Pope's substantiating my rights as he has done, and bringing me through with a high hand, that I should be assailed in a fresh quarter. How sorry Rodomonte would have been! Poor fellow, he loved us both so dearly! And if ever a step-mother did her duty by a step-daughter, I did mine by Isabella. But there was too little difference in our ages. She presumed on my forbearance, and tried to domineer over me. I dare say many people fancy the life of a rich young widow must needs be very happy. Some were even stupid enough to think my dear Duke and I could not be as happy as we seemed. Oh, yes, we were!—though he was forty and I but thirteen.
"Supposing I had been over-persuaded to have Ippolito, how different would have been the story of our lives! Happier for him, possibly, but he may be very well content to be a cardinal. At the same time I have somehow suspected that if ever any one really valued me for myself, he did. They all flatter too much. A flattered person is the tool of the flatterer. It hurts one's mind——
"That noise again! Can it be Caterina snoring? She says she never does: just as if she could hear herself! Whatever it is, I'll have it inquired into. Caterina! Caterina! Cynthia! Cynthia!"
At the sound of the Duchess's voice, two of her attendants came running in from the antechamber. One of them was a withered old woman with a very benevolent face and thin grey hair fastened at the top of her head in a little knot about as big as an egg, with a bodkin: the other a Moorish girl, with large, startled, lustrous eyes, and symmetrical as one of Calypso's nymphs moulded in bronze. She was in a single white garment, but had caught up a striped goat's hair haik, which by day formed the upper part of her attire.
"Did Leila call?" "What will your Vossignoria?"
"I called because I could bear your snoring no longer, Caterina."
"I snore?" repeated Caterina, with a look of injured innocence. "Vossignoria must surely be mistaken; for I was lying wide awake, with Cynthia sleeping beside me, as quiet as a lamb."
"You were dreaming that you were awake," said the Duchess. "I have not once closed my eyes, nor has it been possible—Hark! there is the noise again!" cried she, excitedly. "What on earth can it be?"
They remained transfixed, with suspended breath, in various attitudes of surprise and affright; each of them intently listening.
"I hear nothing, Eccellenza," began Caterina.
"There! there!" exclaimed the Duchess.
Cynthia suddenly sprang to one of the open windows, and looked out—then, clapped her hands to her head, and gave an unearthly yell.
"What is it?" cried Caterina, hastening towards her, and peering forth into the darkness. Then, shrieking, she exclaimed——"The pirates are upon us!"
"Balzo dal letto."[1]—The Duchess sprang from her bed, and took one hasty glance from the window. She could discern a string of turbaned figures with gleaming scimitars swarming up the walls, and leaping down on the inner side.
[1] "Come lupi famelici entrarono in Fondi que' barbari, destandovi tra gli ululati degli abitanti un tumulto indicibile. Il fremito de' ribaldi assalitori, le grida degli assaliti che assordavano l' aria, ruppero a Giulia il sonno, e mentre palpitando e incerta iva pensando qual potesse essere la cagione di tanto rumore, eccole i pallidi famiglieri col tristo annunzio che i Turchi scorrevano l' occupata città, e che non vi era tempo a perdere se bramava salvarsi dalle indegne loro mani. Balzo dal letto," &c., &c.—Ireneo Affo, Memorie di tre Principesse, &c.
"We are undone!" exclaimed she, desperately. "Caterina! arouse the men! Cynthia, help me to dress."
Wild sounds were already heard on every side, both in the town and the castle—alarm-bells ringing, hoarse war-cries, piercing screams—Hayraddin Barbarossa was upon them!
What a plunder! There was the town, to begin with; then, there was the castle; and within the castle, the most beautiful and beloved lady in all Italy! the friend and favourite of popes and princes; a princess herself, enormously rich! What a ransom!
But no ransom was the object of Hayraddin Barbarossa, the scourge of the seas. He meant to carry her away captive to Solyman the Magnificent, Emperor of the Turks. With this purpose, and no less, had Hayraddin been hovering off the coast with a hundred galleys and two thousand Turks on board,[2] terrifying the Neapolitans out of their wits at the very thought of his red beard and red flag—he, who avowed himself "the friend of the sea, and the foe of all who sailed upon it"—whose very name was a word of fear from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Dardanelles![3]
[2] "Piena l' Italia e l' Europa fosse di quanto iva spargendo la fama intorno le singolare bellezze di Giulia; erane passato anche il grido ai molli regni dell' Asia. Solimano II., Imperadore de' Turchi, non ignorava quanto ella fosse avvenente; onde giacchè avea guerra coll' Imperador Carlo V., fornito Ariadene Barbarossa di cento galere, con ciu potesse trascorrere i mari nostri, e battere le coste de paesi Christiani, gl' ingiunse che tra le spoglie più rieche, onde carico lo attendeva, dovesse aver luogo la vagha Signora di Fondi. Fece plauso al comando il baldanzoso corsaro, che, avido di riportar gloria, al mare affidosi pien di si audace pensiero," &c.—Idem.
[3] Robertson's "Charles the Fifth."
"They will be upon us directly, Signora," said her trembling, grey-haired seneschal, who had hastened to her at the first alarm. "Lose no time in escaping. The pirates will never content themselves with the town—rely on it, you are their object. We will lower you from the window—you must then cross the draw-bridge, and pass through the gallery cut in the rock. It will bring you out on the hill-side, where Tiberio shall join you with horses—"
"Come, then, Caterina—"
"Alas, Madama, I am too old for jumping out of windows—I will remain to secrete the jewels, and look after the maids. We will lock ourselves in the cellars."
"Come then, Cynthia. Be quick."
Cynthia, who was wrapping herself in her haik, looked unwilling, and said:
"May I not remain with Caterina, Leila?"
"Certainly not. Jump out of window this instant, and then you can help me down."
The Duchess accelerated her by a slight push, on which she sprang lightly as a chamois to the ground, which was not far below; and the Duchess, seeing she came to no harm, called on the saints, and did the same. Caterina lowered them a lamp, which they covered, and soon they were in the rocky passage, while the Turks in the distance were howling like hungry wolves or mad dogs.[4]
[4] "Lupi famelici," "colla rabbia d' affamati cani."
"How cold it is!"