"Truly, the Lady Vittoria speaks wisely," said Messer Florio, glancing up at the cliff as though fearful that their enemies might even yet be in position to harm them from above. "Take my place, Ferdinand, while I work the bow out to sea again." The boy obeyed, and between them they soon had the skiff tacking out from shore, her nose pointing over towards Capua. "Poor Isabella," said Vittoria after a time. "I think she was too fearful even to speak. We must send a guard to bring her in by dusk." "'Tis well one of you had courage to give the warning," said Florio. "'Twas a climb few girls would care to risk to my thinking." "Needs must when the devil drives," answered Vittoria with a laugh. "I could not see them steal my husband from before my very eyes. Moreover when have the Orsini ever had the better of a true Colonna?" So Ferdinand the boy Marquis of Pescara and Florio his tutor sang the praises of the little Lady Vittoria Colonna until they had rounded the rugged cliffs of Ischia and sailed into safe harbor. Above the landing-place stood the great fortress-castle where lived Costanza d' Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, and châtelaine of this island rock of Ischia. Florio gave a sigh of relief as he saw Ferdinand and Vittoria step on shore. He knew the robbers would have made short shrift of him if they could have placed their hands on the young Lord of Pescara. In those days the great Roman families of Colonna and Orsini were always at swords' points. Each had had many cardinals, statesmen, and warriors, and each strove its hardest to despoil the other. Vittoria, the youngest daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, had been born in 1490 in the Castle of Marino, which guarded one of the passes in the Alban hills near Rome. But such a castle was no place for children, for the lords of Marino and the other mountain strongholds lived like robber barons, swooping down on neighboring towns and cities, holding travelers to ransom, and attacking and destroying one another's homes on any favoring chance. The Lord Fabrizio Colonna and his wife Agnes were anxious to place their daughter in safer hands, and at the same time it happened that Ferdinand II, King of Sicily and Naples, was desirous of uniting the powerful Colonna family to his cause by marrying a girl of that house to a boy of his own race. So at five years of age Vittoria was solemnly betrothed to Ferdinand, Marquis of Pescara, and went to live in the sheltered island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, under the care of the Duchess of Francavilla, the older sister of the young Marquis Ferdinand. Here the boy and girl were brought up together, studying under the same teachers, playing the same games, while the careful Duchess kept vigilant watch and ward over both, for nothing would have pleased the lords of the house of Orsini better than to prevent the marriage of a Colonna to a boy of such rank and wealth. Even in Ischia, protected by nature as it was and guarded by the