At Capua, that ancient city of delights, which turned the strong Carthaginian invaders into feeble voluptuaries, cowardice was fitly followed up by treachery. The troops were under command of Gianjacopo Triulzi, a captain of repute, "accustomed to make profession of honour," observes Guicciardini, in his dry, contemptuous way. This honourable captain seized the moment when his young master had been called back to Naples by disorders in the city, to deliver over his whole command to the French. Ferdinand hurried back; but arrived too late. He returned with a few followers to Naples. The whole city was in an uproar, the mob was already sacking the stables of the Castel Nuovo. There was no more hope of stemming the tide. The young king, brave, just, and personally popular, was overwhelmed by the misdeeds of his house. The very guards of his palace were inclined to seize his person; but he distracted their attention by admitting them to sack the castle, and while they were quarrelling over their booty, he left the castle by the secret postern towards the sea, and embarked on a light galley bound for Ischia. There as he stood in the stern, and through the black smoke of the burning ships, destroyed by his orders, saw home and kingdom lost by the sins and dishonour of other men, he repeated over and over, as long as he could still see Naples, those words in which the psalmist tells us that except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. But the Castle of the Egg still held out for him, and the French, having seized a little tower on the height of Pizzofalcone, bombarded the fortress from that eminence. King Charles the Eighth himself was there watching the practice of his gunners, when two light galleys ran across from Ischia, touching shore at the old mole, and from one of them landed Don Federigo of Aragon, uncle of the King, who had dwelt at the French Court, and knew both Charles and his barons. They took him up to the height, and when the French King saw him coming, says Passaro, that most gossipy of chroniclers, "he leapt down from his horse and bowed down to the ground, and embraced Don Federigo with the greatest pleasure, and took him by the hand and led him apart to a spot beneath an olive tree, where they began to talk together, but of what they said I know nothing, though many supposed that King Charles was trying to treat with King Ferdinand, offering him great lordships in France, but he would not, and Don Federigo left him and went back to his ships."