love burned thus fervently, it so befell that one summer's day, as the
damsel was all alone on the seashore, picking her way from rock to rock,
detaching, as she went, shells from their beds with a knife, she came to
a recess among the rocks, where for the sake, as well of the shade as of
the comfort afforded by a spring of most cool water that was there, some
Sicilian gallants, that were come from Naples, had put in with their
felucca. Who, having taken note of the damsel, that she was very fair,
and that she was not yet ware of them, and was alone, resolved to capture
her, and carry her away; nor did they fail to give effect to their
resolve; but, albeit she shrieked amain, they laid hands on her, and set
her aboard their boat, and put to sea. Arrived at Calabria, they fell a
wrangling as to whose the damsel should be, and in brief each claimed her
for his own: wherefore, finding no means of coming to an agreement, and
fearing that worse might befall them, and she bring misfortune upon them,
they resolved with one accord to give her to Frederic, King of Sicily,
who was then a young man, and took no small delight in commodities of
that quality; and so, being come to Palermo, they did.

Marking her beauty, the King set great store by her; but as she was
somewhat indisposed, he commanded that, till she was stronger, she should
be lodged and tended in a very pretty villa that was in one of his
gardens, which he called Cuba; and so 'twas done. The purloining of the
damsel caused no small stir in Ischia, more especially because 'twas
impossible to discover by whom she had been carried off. But Gianni, more
concerned than any other, despairing of finding her in Ischia, and being
apprised of the course the felucca had taken, equipped one himself, and
put to sea, and in hot haste scoured the whole coast from Minerva to
Scalea in Calabria, making everywhere diligent search for the damsel, and
in Scalea learned that she had been taken by Sicilian mariners to
Palermo. Whither, accordingly, he hied him with all speed; and there