"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.