d, so he set his
captains to work to discover the necessary slave. This was soon
accomplished, and there was really no occasion for a slave on this
occasion, as a renegado of Naples knew the castle in which Julia Gonzaga
was residing at the time, and readily agreed to act as guide to the
expedition sent to accomplish her capture. Kheyr-ed-Din had made a sudden
dash along the coast with some of the swiftest of his galleys for the
purposes of this capture. In consequence the people in Naples and the
neighbourhood were not even aware that the piratical squadron was on the
coast before they anchored, as near as it was practicable to do, to the
residence of the Duchess of Trajetto. The fleet actually arrived after
dark, having kept out to sea and out of sight during the day.

As soon as the anchors were down a party of two thousand picked men were
landed and marched silently and with all expedition to the castle of Fundi.
The escape of the Duchess was really providential. She had already gone to
bed, and the fierce marauders were actually within the grounds of the
castle before her distracted people became aware of their presence. But
fortunately some among them kept their heads, and it also so happened that
her bed-chamber was the opposite side of the castle to that by which the
pirates approached. A horse was brought round under the window of the room,
and, in her night-dress with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was
Julia Gonzaga lowered out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she
galloped for dear life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of
her miserable household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who
had thus been balked of their prey.

Dire was the vengeance taken by the corsairs. They sacked Fundi and burned
the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their hands, and
carried off the women and girls to the fleet.

Kheyr-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. "What is the value
of all this trash?" he demanded, with a thundering oath, of the commander
of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the miserable, shivering
women and girls. "I sent you out to bring back a pearl without price, and
you return with these cattle."

Thus balked of his prey, Barbarossa swung his fleet round to the southward
and westward and sailed for Sardinia, where, from the Straits of Bonifacio
to Cape Spartivento, he left no house standing that would burn, or man
alive