“The Vardarelli were discovered; but still it was no easy matter to get at them.  Instead of losing men by a direct attack, the soldiers blocked up the air-hole with stones, set a guard over it, and then going round to the door of the cellar, which was barricadoed on the inner side, they heaped lighted fagots and combustibles against it, so that the staircase was soon one immense furnace.  After a time the door gave way, and the fire poured like a torrent into the retreat of the unfortunate bandits.  Still a profound silence reigned in the vault.  Presently two carbine shots were fired; two brothers, determined not to fall alive into the hands of their enemies, had shot each other to death.  A moment afterwards an explosion was heard; a bandit had thrown himself into the flames, and his cartridge box had blown up.  At last the remainder of the unfortunate men being nearly suffocated, and seeing that escape was impossible, surrendered at discretion, were dragged through the air-hole, and immediately bound hand and foot, and conveyed to prison.

“As to the eight who had refused to come to Foggia, and the two who had escaped, they were hunted down like wild beasts, tracked from cavern to cavern, and from forest to forest.  Some were shot, others betrayed by the peasantry, some gave themselves up, so that, before the year was out, all the Vardarelli were dead or prisoners.  The woman who had displayed such masculine courage, was the only one who finally escaped.  She was never heard of afterwards.”

M. Dumas finds that the climate of Naples, delightful as it is, has nevertheless its little drawbacks and disadvantages.  He returns one night from an excursion in the environs, and has scarcely got into bed, when he is almost blown out of it again by a tornado of tropical violence.

“At midnight, when we returned to Naples, the weather was perfect, the sky cloudless, the sea without a ripple.  At three in the morning I was awakened by the windows of my room bursting open, their eighteen panes of glass falling upon the floor with a frightful clatter.  I jumped out of bed, and felt that the house was shaking.  I thought of Pliny the Elder, and having no desire for a similar fate, I hastily pulled on my clothes and hurried out into the corridor.  My first impulse had apparently been that of all the inmates of the hotel, who were all standing, more or less dressed, at the doors of their apartments; amongst others, Jadin, who made his appearance with a phosphorus box in his hand, and his dog Milord at his heels.  ‘What a terrible draught in the house!’ said he to me.  This same draught, as he called it, had just carried off the roof of the Prince of San Feodoro’s palace, including the garrets and several servants who were sleeping in them.

“My first thought had been of an eruption of Vesuvius, but there was no such luck for us; it was merely a hurricane.  A hurricane at Naples, however, is rather different from the same thing in any other European country.