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IT was in the first days of August of 1527 that Doria took possession of Genoa for the King of France, and Prospero Adorno, in flight from the city, abandoned his command of the Papal Navy.

Less than a year later—towards the end of May of 1528—we find him in Naples, as an Imperial Captain, serving under Don Hugo de Moncada, the Emperor’s Viceroy.

His father had perished miserably, be it from an aggravation of his infirm condition as a result of hardships endured in the escape, be it from a loss of the will to live, be it from a combination of the two. He was a dying man when at last they had reached Milan and the shelter which Antonio de Leyva, the Imperial Governor, so readily afforded them. There, in the great castle of Porta Giovia, Antoniotto Adorno had yielded up his life within three days of arrival.

The first explosion of his widow’s grief was of a violence that took Prospero by surprise. Reluctantly he had regarded his mother as one who loved herself too well to be deeply stirred by whatever might happen to another, no matter how near of kin. In the hour of his own grief he found some consolation in that under the hard surface of his mother’s nature a depth of feeling made of their bereavement a bond between them.

All of a day and a night she was in a state of prostration. But thirty hours after Antoniotto’s death she came, in black velvet, to stand with Prospero beside his father’s bier.

Often he had heard the voice of this daughter of the Strozzi hard to the pitch of cruelty, but never so hard as now.

‘Your father lies here murdered. You know his murderers, and where to find them. It is the Dorias, greedy, perfidious, faithless, and unscrupulous, who have brought him, broken-hearted, to this miserable end. Never forget that, Prospero.’

‘I am not likely to forget it.’

She touched his arm, her voice deepening in solemnity. ‘Kneel, my child. Kneel. Place your hand on the bier. There, where his heart should be. It is cold now; but it was warm once with love of you. Make oath upon that heart never to rest until you’ve brought the House of Doria as low as Andrea Doria has brought Antoniotto Adorno. Swear that, my son. Let it be as a last prayer, to give your father peace.’

He knelt and put forth his hand. Remembering the perfidy which had made him the instrument of his father’s ruin, his voice pronounced the oath with an intensity as fierce as that which administered it.

The first step towards its fulfilment was taken when Prospero embraced the chance which de Leyva afforded him of entering the Emperor’s service.

In the year that was sped since that was done, as if the curse which Charles V had invited by the sack of Rome were paralyzing his strength, the campaign had gone steadily against the Imperial arms. Marshal de Lautrec, who had made himself master of Upper Italy, had for two months now been encamped before Naples with thirty thousand men. The siege had brought the city to the point of famine; and in the wake of this the foul spectre of the plague was already stalking. Co-operating with Lautrec, Doria’s galleys had come to bar the sea approaches. But the Lord Andrea, himself, was not in command. He had been content to let Filippino take his place, himself remaining in Genoa. To the mystery of this the key was supplied by Scipione de’ Fieschi. He had contrived to maintain a correspondence with Prospero, and in his later letters there was news of bitter unrest in Genoa. He wrote that the fate of politicians who do not fulfil their promises was overtaking Andrea Doria, and his dominant position in the Republic had never stood so near destruction.

The French protection, accepted on Doria’s assurances that under it the Ligurian Republic would at last be free, was proving a tyranny as harsh and exacting as any that the State had known, and the hero’s aureole was fading fast from the Lord Andrea’s head. Matters had been brought to a climax by the French endeavour to build up the port of Savona at the expense of Genoa. In this, if it were continued, the Genoese foresaw their own inevitable ruin; and Doria was being held responsible for it, since the change of masters which produced this threat had certainly been his work. Even the Fregosi, whom he had set up, were in the swelling movement against him.

Thus threatened with the extinction of the credit upon which he depended, Doria sought refuge in proclaiming that France had broken faith with him, and that he would quit the service of King Francis if these wrongs were not righted.

Scipione wrote of these things in obvious malicious satisfaction, and from the events he drew inferences which, whilst dictated by the same malice, were yet irresistible.

They explained, he thought, why instead of going, himself, to Naples, Andrea Doria had sent his nephew Filippino. He was afraid to leave Genoa at such a moment. He must remain, so that the honesty of his intentions should appear, and so as to defend what was left him of his reputation. Scipione thought it certain that self-defence must drive him the length of quitting French service. And there were rumours, too, of personal grievances. It was said that money was not forthcoming from King Francis. The knightly monarch’s ladies absorbed the gold that should have come to pay and feed the troops. Doria, already heavily out of pocket and vainly clamouring for arrears, was notoriously as implacable as any other mercenary where money was concerned.

Scipione ventured the opinion that in this occasion, if properly employed, lay the means to mend the Emperor’s fortunes in Italy. To extricate himself from his present difficulties Doria would sell his services and his galleys on almost any terms.

Prospero perfectly understood the malicious hope that Scipione fostered. If Doria, being tempted, should succumb, and abandoning the service of France to which he was pledged, pass over to the enemy, he might win the immediate approval of the Genoese, but at the price of the world’s contempt; and once Genoa perceived this, Scipione conceived it unlikely that Doria would count for much in the councils of the Republic.

With the letter that contained all this, Prospero sought the Marquis del Vasto, who was lodged in the Castel Nuovo regally, as became a consequence derived not only from his relationship with the great Pescara, but from the intimacy of his relations with Charles V. Deep in the confidence of the Emperor, Alfonso d’Avalos was regarded in Naples as more closely representing His Majesty than even the Viceroy himself.

The young Marquis—he was, like the Emperor, in his twenty-eighth year—darkly handsome of person and of easy courtly manners, received his visitor with affability. Prospero went without preamble to the matter that brought him.

‘You know my views, my lord, of the action to which the Viceroy is being driven by counsels of despair.’

‘More than that.’ Del Vasto smiled. ‘I share them.’

‘Why, then, here is something that may persuade him to stay his hand awhile.’ He proffered his letter.

It was a day of gloom and storm, and del Vasto moved to the window, against which the rain was beating, seeking light by which to read. He was a long time reading, fingering his little pointed beard the while, and a longer time considering, whilst the only sounds were the lashing of the rain and dull boom of the waves upon the rocks at the castle’s base.

At last, when he turned again to face his companion there was a faint flush glowing through his olive skin and a glitter in his dark eyes, betraying a queer excitement.

‘Is the writer trustworthy?’ he asked sharply. ‘Can you depend upon his opinions?’

‘If his opinions were all, I should not have troubled you. What he believes is of no consequence. We can draw inferences for ourselves. What matter are the facts which he reports, the events in Genoa. To these we can add our knowledge of Doria’s ambition. He must extricate himself from his difficulty, or become the last man in the State, where he had hoped to be the first.’

‘Yes. I see that.’ The frowning Marquis toyed absently with his thumb-ring. ‘But it is possible that he speaks the truth when he declares that he was betrayed by France. More, it is probable; for King Francis is of a shifty nature, reckless of promises, grudging of fulfilment.’

‘That is no matter.’ Prospero displayed impatience. This defence of Doria irritated him. ‘It does not affect the situation.’

‘Believe me, it does; for if I were persuaded that Doria is untrustworthy, I should not care to deal with him.’

He looked at Prospero as if inviting an answer. But Prospero subdued himself. It was inevitable that he should share Scipione’s hope of seeing Doria unmasked; and having sought del Vasto so as to further that aim, it was not for him to raise obstacles against it.

In the face of Prospero’s silence, the Marquis resumed. ‘I know, of course, that you have every cause to think the worst of Doria. The appearances justify you. But they are still only appearances.’

‘My father did not die merely in appearance,’ said Prospero, unable to repress at least that protest.

Slowly del Vasto came forward until one of his fine hands was resting on Prospero’s shoulder. He spoke softly. ‘I know. I know. That must colour all your view.’ He paused a moment, then became brisk. ‘I’ll borrow the courier who brought you this letter. He shall bear me a word to Andrea Doria that will put Messer de’ Fieschi’s judgment to the test.’

‘Have you in mind to make him a proposal? Would you go as far as that, my lord?’

‘At need I’ll go further. I know the Emperor’s mind in this as I know my own. He accounts Doria the greatest captain of the age, as, indeed, do we all. It is his firm conviction that who Doria serves will be master of the Mediterranean Sea. If Fieschi is right, here is the chance to win him for the Emperor’s service, and His Majesty would never forgive me if I missed it. I’ll write to Madrid at once. And meanwhile I shall open negotiations with Messer Andrea.’ His hand closed again on Prospero’s shoulder with more than ordinary warmth. ‘I shall owe you an increase of credit with my master. The inspiration to bring me this letter was as shrewd as it was friendly. I am very grateful to you.’

Prospero returned the smile of those dark, liquid eyes. ‘That is an even better recompense than the arresting of this ill-conceived project to break the blockade.’

But when they came later in the day to the meeting of the Viceroy’s Council they found that ill-conceived project none so easy to arrest.

Hugo de Moncada sat with his captains in the Chamber of the Angels in the Beverello Tower, a chamber so-called from the angelic mural paintings of Bicazzo.

They were famous captains all: the hard-bitten Neapolitan, Cesare Fieramosca; the sombre Ascanio Colonna; Girolami da Trani, the Grand-Master of the artillery, and the hunchback Giustiniani, accounted one of the foremost naval commanders of the day. There was also Philibert of Châlons, Prince of Orange, who like Alfonso of Avalos had not yet reached the age of thirty, but whose celebrity and authority stood high. Prospero came to the council-table with Scipione’s letter, and made known its contents, which, he opined, should bear upon the matter they were gathered to consider.

When he paused, having read the vital phrase: ‘If time be not lost in seizing the moment, Charles V may buy Doria and his galleys on almost any terms,’ del Vasto interposed. ‘I may tell you, sirs, that no time is being lost. I have already dispatched a proposal to Andrea Doria in my master’s name.’

There was a general movement of startled surprise, which the Prince of Orange allayed almost at once.

‘There was no rashness in that. His Majesty’s confirmation may confidently be assumed.’

‘That being the situation,’ said del Vasto, ‘the gods having tossed this gift into our lap, we are relieved, I think, of the necessity of pursuing this matter of attempting to break the blockade. We can wait.’

The hunchback Giustiniani threw himself back in his chair with an audible sigh of relief.

‘God be thanked for that. For the business was desperate.’

But they reckoned without the obstinacy of Moncada. The swarthy, stockily built Aragonese at the table’s head was contemptuous.

‘Are you supposing that with Naples starving and pest-ridden, we can wait whilst couriers come and go, and terms are settled?’ He leaned forward and with a powerful brown hand punctuated what he had to say by taps upon the table. ‘Andrea Doria may be for sale, or he may not. The one thing certain is that he can’t be bought today or this week. The transaction will need time, and we command none. Send off your couriers, by all means, Lord Marquis; but meanwhile I must bring food into Naples, and I can’t do that until I’ve chased Filippino Doria from the Gulf.’

‘Which I’ve already declared to be a task beyond the resources at our command,’ grumbled Giustiniani. ‘And I know something of these matters.’

Moncada, however, was not to be intimidated. A soldier of fortune, nobly born and of a wide experience gathered under Cesare Borgia and the great Gonsalvo de Cordoba, he had fought at sea against the Moors and at one time had been Admiral of the Imperial fleet. He was of a boldness almost without parallel in his day, and he indulged it now. From dockyard and arsenal he had scraped together a force of six ordinary traffic-galleys, four feluccas, a couple of brigantines, and some fishing-boats. With this ramshackle fleet he proposed to assail the eight powerful, well-found war-galleys with which Filippino held the Gulf. He possessed no adequate ordnance, but what he lacked in this he would make up in man-power by embarking a thousand Spanish arquebusiers. That there were risks, grave risks, he was ready to admit. But they had reached the desperate stage in which any risk must be accepted, and, impatient of opposition, he looked to his captains to remember it.

When he had forcibly expressed himself, del Vasto was the only one who still ventured to oppose him. Such was his confidence that he would willingly let Naples suffer plague and famine yet awhile, but so as to save time, he would not hesitate to go to Genoa in person at once and negotiate with Doria in the Emperor’s name.

It was all in vain. There was no swaying Moncada. A Venetian fleet under Lando was known to be on its way to reinforce Filippino. Once it arrived, all chance of a break through would be gone. He dared not delay.

On that the council broke up, and the captains went about their preparations for the adventure.

It proved an ill-conducted affair from the outset. The only chance of an inferior force’s success against a superior one lies in surprise, and the chance of this which might so easily have been his, Moncada threw away.

In the dark hours before the dawn of a calm day of late May the fleet, with the Viceroy himself in command, left the roadstead under the heights of Posilipo, and reached its station on the eastern side of Capri just as the sunrise cast a rosy glow on the island bluffs. The intention had been to set out at midnight so that under cover of darkness they might lie in wait for Filippino as he cruised in the Gulf of Salerno. But such had been the delays that the light of day came to reveal the fleet to hostile eyes before the headlands of Capri could supply a dissembling background.

To make matters worse, the chance of a night surprise being lost, Moncada, that care-free soldier of fortune who for thirty years had gaily carried his life in his hands, prepared for battle as for a wedding. He landed his forces and feasted them on the island; and after this, delayed further whilst they listened to a sermon preached them by a friar. Then when at last he took the sea to meet Filippino’s galleys, which advanced in the far-flung line abreast that best disposed them to any evolution, Moncada went in such a bravery of banners and with such flourishes of trumpets that he might have been upon a Venetian water festival in time of Carnival.

Prospero, who had been given command of the Sicama, one of the best of the Neapolitan galleys, observed all this with gloomy forebodings. They were headed south, the six galleys forming line abreast like their opponents, with the lesser vessels straggling after them. As if expressing Moncada’s impatience to be at grips, their speed was an ever-increasing one, mercilessly wrung by the whips of the wardens from the slaves at the oars.

As they came abreast of Amalfi they observed that three of the Genoese galleys at the seaward end of Filippino’s line veered away from it and made for the open.

Too rashly the Spaniards interpreted that action. ‘They are in flight!’ was the cry that ran from vessel to vessel, and more fiercely fell the lashes of the wardens on the straining backs of the panting oarsmen.

Prospero, however, saw the thing quite differently, and said so to del Vasto, who stood with him on the poop of the Sicama. Deliberately the Marquis, who was without experience of naval action, had chosen to serve as lieutenant to this young captain, whose fame he knew.

‘That is no flight.’ Prospero pointed to a flag that had broken from the poop of the galley that now occupied the middle position of Filippino’s line. ‘Those three obey a signal, and the signalling galley is the capitana. That the plan was preconcerted is clear from the capitana’s present position in the line. The departing galleys held their stations only temporarily. Filippino is forming a reserve, with which to strike as the events may dictate.’

All that Moncada perceived was that his six galleys were now confronted by no more than five. Encouraged, he drove forward the more furiously in his haste to come to close quarters, so as to neutralize the enemy’s superior artillery. So intent was he upon this that he disdained to open fire, the advice offered by Trani, who was with him on his flagship.

‘That is merely to invite the like answer from them. I want to do this business with cold steel.’

Filippino, however, trusting to his superior ordnance, was just as anxious to avoid boarding tactics. Flame and smoke belched from the great basilisk on the prow of his capitana, and launched upon Moncada a stone shot, two hundred pounds in weight. The monstrous projectile, truly aimed, enfiladed the capitana of Naples from stem to stern; it shore away rostrum and rambade, and dealing death and destruction in its passage, it crashed through the tabernacle astern and went to spend itself in the waters of the gulf.

Moncada and Trani were smothered where they stood in the blood of those on the vestibule whom the shot had shattered. The oars faltered, fell into confusion, ceased as a result of death and panic among the slaves. Two surviving, half-demented wardens flung themselves at the gang to restore order, summoning soldiers to assist them to drag out the cumbering dead and wounded, and plying their lashes to subdue the living.

Across the shambles of the gang-deck, Girolamo da Trani leapt, himself to replace the gunners who had been swept away from the guns on the starboard side of the rambade. From the deck he snatched up a glowing match, fallen from a hand now dead, and touched off one of the falconets. But the galley had yawed from her course, and the shot went wide and harmless. An officer with furious vigour, making himself heard above the general din, was assembling and posting arquebusiers under cover of the wreckage of the rambade, and Trani was desperately seeking cannoneers for their other guns, when a second burst of fire swept their deck from the enemy capitana, which had now ceased to ply her oars.

Perceiving in this Filippino’s design to avoid battle at close quarters, Moncada roared orders to his wardens to get the oars going, so as to come to grapples with the Genoese.

On either side of the two flagships the other galleys had now opened fire on one another, and for a little while the engagement resolved itself into a number of artillery duels with no particular advantage yet to either side. During this the Genoese capitana drew so far ahead of her line that, at last, she was midway between the two fleets. So much fire had Filippino pumped by now into Moncada’s galley as to be sure that her power of resistance was so broken that she might with confidence be boarded and carried. To this end he was bearing down upon her when Prospero, from his station on the extreme right of the line, swung the Sicama inwards across the bows of his neighbour, the Villamarina, signalling to her to veer with him. If he exposed his flank to the enemy fire, he had taken the precaution of ordering his men to lie prone, so that the shot should sweep over them. His aim was to engage Filippino with a superior force not only so as to arrest the advance upon Moncada’s crippled galley, but so that by striking at the head of the enemy fleet he might perhaps force a quick decision.

Cesare Fieramosca, who commanded the Villamarina, quick to perceive his aim, instantly obeyed the summons, and swung with him to intercept the Genoese. But Filippino perceived it, too, and as instantly signalled to the two galleys on his left to meet and hold off the menace.

It became a race between the Spanish galleys to intercept Filippino and the Genoese to intercept the Spaniards. Vainly did Prospero call to his wardens to lash the last ounce of power out of his rowers, and vainly did the slaves respond. Unable to elude the two Genoese, Prospero was forced to engage them, and soon the four galleys locked together were at death grips, whilst Filippino bore on to administer the coup de grâce to the half-shattered Spanish capitana.

Giustiniani on the Gobba, seeing in that battle of four galleys at close quarters the very heart of the engagement, sped to the assistance of Prospero, leaving the two remaining Spaniards to engage the two remaining Genoese. As for the feluccas and the fishing-boats, without adequate leadership or armament, they were kept at a respectful distance by the enemy’s fire.

Prospero meanwhile, in back-and-breast and steel cap, and wielding a two-handed sword, had led a charge aboard the Pellegrina that swept her from end to end and reduced her into possession. This enabled him to pass on to swell Fieramosca’s forces that were beating down the resistance of the other galley, the Donzella. And a terrible resistance it proved, in which the Spaniards faced not only the arquebusiers of Lautrec, but the actual slave-gangs, a horde of half-naked Barbary fighters, armed with target and sword. Relieved of their chains, and given by Filippino under solemn oath a promise that they should be restored to liberty if victory favoured them, they fought with the desperate fury which such a hope inspired. Nevertheless, assailed on both quarters, despite their superior numbers, the two Genoese galleys were at last overpowered. But even as the last blow was struck that gave the victory to the Spaniards, Prospero, foul with grime and sweat and the blood of the carnage through which he had come, realized from the poop of the Donzella that this victory came too late.

The three galleys that had stood off were now coming back at speed into the fray, proving themselves the reserve he had pronounced them. His lingering hope was that their purpose would be to attempt to wrest from him the galleys he had captured. But Lomellino, who commanded that reserve, knew better, or had been better schooled. His blow was to be struck at the head, at Moncada’s capitana, which at grips with Filippino and despite her battered state was still valiantly holding her own.

Straight for Moncada raced Lomellino’s three vessels. The spur of one of them shore away the rudder of the Spaniard, whilst a second one rammed her amidships, and the noise of the breaking oars made one with the screams of the slaves whose ribs were being crushed by the impact. It brought the mainmast smashing murderously down, to put an end by its fall to the agony of some of these wretches, and amongst others whom it crushed to death was Girolamo da Trani, who was still directing the galley’s fire.

Then the third of Lomellino’s galleys drove her rostrum over the space whence the rostrum of the capitana had been shorn away by the first shot of the battle.

Moncada, seeing his danger of being boarded on three sides at once, leapt, sword in hand, from the poop to the deck below, roaring a rallying-cry to his men. The shot of an arquebus shattered his right arm, another ploughed deeply through his left thigh. He went down in a welter of blood, strove for a moment to rise again as the sound of the enemy rushing his decks rolled to him like thunder; then he passed into an unconsciousness from which he was never to return.

Ascanio Colonna saw him go down, and sprang to his aid, to be felled, himself, momentarily dazed. A fire-pot flung by one of the men on the cross-trees of Lomellino’s galley had almost crushed his helmet.

A rapidly diminishing line of arquebusiers still held the space between the stern and the middle platform where the stump of the mainmast sprouted from the deck. They were ringed about by fire and steel, deafened by yells and screams, by shots, the clang of metal, and the crash of timbers. And then even this space was being invaded on the starboard quarter through a breach in the galley’s dead works.

At the head of this fresh party of boarders, yet without knowing how he came there, Colonna, who had staggered, bleeding, to his feet, recognized Filippino Doria, himself.

He took his sword by the blade and reeled forward.

‘You arrive opportunely,’ he greeted the Genoese. His voice was drowned in that infernal uproar, but the sword, proffered hilt foremost, conveyed a clear message, and Filippino, recognizing him, raised hand and voice to stem the carnage on the galley that at last surrendered.

That surrender, however, Filippino was regarding as of small account. Two of his galleys, smashed by gunfire, and one of these in flames, barely kept themselves afloat. Two more were in the grip of Prospero’s contingent, and even as Moncada’s colours were hauled down, Prospero, leaving a prize crew to hold the captured vessels, was free at last to succour his Admiral and redeem the day. Once more aboard the Sicama, he led the Villamarina and the Gobba to the rescue, whilst Lomellino backed his three galleys away from the conquered capitana, and swung to engage these newcomers. The superior ordnance of the Genoese smothered the Villamarina in a murderous fire, and an arquebus ball ended the intrepid life of Cesare Fieramosca. His galley fell behind in confusion, staggered by a blow that in slaying her captain left her without direction.

But the Sicama and the Gobba, running in through the fire, were at grips with Lomellino’s three. Their force reduced by the men left in possession of the captured Genoese, Prospero, his hopes now running high, enjoined a purely defensive action until one or the other of the two remaining Imperial galleys, the Perpignana and the Oria, could come to their support. Largely as a result of his vision and promptitude the fortunes of the day were turning strongly in favour of Naples. Let the Perpignana and the Oria now be prompt, and as a naval commander Filippino Doria’s course would be run and the seas would be open for the relief of Naples.

There was no time to lose. Already the Genoese were on the forward platform of the Sicama, driving back the Spaniards and making themselves masters of the rambade. And then, as things became desperate aboard his own galley, Prospero saw to his anger and dismay that the Perpignana and the Oria, upon which he counted, were standing off ignoring his signalled summons. As the Genoese stormed his rambade he beheld the two Neapolitan galleys actually in flight, followed by what remained of the lesser craft. Because they had seen Moncada’s flag hauled down, they had chosen to consider that the day was lost, and they were speeding to safety.

The captain of the Perpignana was to explain himself ashore to the Prince of Orange, who had remained there in command during Moncada’s absence. He propounded to the Prince that he had accounted it his duty to save his galley for the Emperor, for which conception of duty Orange hanged him out of hand. As for the captain of the Oria, intelligent enough to foresee what might happen to him in Naples, he carried his defection to its logical conclusion, and went eventually to range himself and his galley under the Doria banner.

Prospero’s hopes, which had been running so high, were utterly shattered by that cowardly desertion. In despair he realized that nothing that he might now do could redeem their fortunes. A fourth galley, Filippino’s own, was coming up to join the assailants of the only two Imperial vessels that still resisted.

Del Vasto touched his arm. ‘It is finished, my friend. Those traitors have stolen a victory that would have been yours alone. It will not profit the Emperor that you die here.’

To this proposal to surrender Prospero could oppose no reason.

‘Better to live, so that we may die some other day to better purpose.’

‘When that day comes, Prospero, let me again be at your side.’

As Lautrec’s arquebusiers broke through the rambade to the gang-deck, where his last line of defence was ranged, Prospero hauled down his flag so that he might put an end to a slaughter that was now useless.