"Indeed 'tis like looking down from a nest upon a stormy plain," agreed the girl. "Here at least are few plottings and struggles."
She settled more comfortably, her head resting in the palm of her hand. Then, after a moment, she sat up again and, turning to her companion, laid a finger to her lips. Close to them, the other side of the network of wild vines, was the sound of footsteps and presently of voices.
"To the west, beyond this cliff, lies a beach," she heard a man's voice say, "where the Marquis Ferdinand and his teacher come to swim each day at this hour. We can hide in the bushes back of the shore and take them unarmed. The Orsini have offered an hundred ducats for the boy."
There followed a chuckle, and then another voice added: "'Tis an easy way to line my purse again."
"Softly then, softly," cautioned the first speaker, and crackling twigs marked their stealthy descent towards the sheltered beach.
The girl, alarm in her eyes, sat up straight. As soon as the crackling ceased she bent forward. "Didst hear, Isabella?" she whispered. "Didst hear yon plot? They wait for Ferdinand and Messer Florio to bathe beneath the cliff and then set on them. An hundred ducats the Orsini pay. What can we do to warn them?"
But Isabella's wits seemed flown away. She sat silent, rocking from side to side, her face suddenly quite white.
"Think, Isabella, think; what shall we do? We can't let them have Ferdinand without a warning. 'Tis almost time that his boat came alongshore. He bathes at sunset and the sun is nearly gone. Speak, Isabella, speak."
The girl put her hand on the woman's arm and shook her. The only reply was a moan and a whispered, "Oh, Vittoria, what will our dear lady the Duchess say?"
"She will say we were cowards for one thing, and she will be right," said the girl. "Many a time have I heard my father say, 'There's nothing the Orsini want but the Colonna will snatch away from them.' They shan't have Ferdinand. Tell your beads here on the cliff an you will; I'm going down over its edge to the beach."