The road which this ravine afforded was not only difficult but likely to cause frightful accidents; for when I ascended by it the first time, to join the besiegers’ army, I saw where a sumpter horse heavily laden had fallen the day before with its load, and the poor animal was still visible lying on its back some hundred feet below.
To supply the requisites for a siege by such a road, it may well be believed, was difficult in the extreme, and would have been impossible but for our all-conquering sailors, who with their tackling and their “yo-hee-ho” hauled the guns and carriages up the rocks at the points nearest to the ground chosen for their position. Yet it was some days after my arrival before operations could be commenced, and much of those days I passed in a lofty observatory built of branches, in so elevated a position that I looked down upon the castle and the sea.
On one side I saw the Neapolitan gunboats, and on the other Sir Sidney Smith’s battery, cannonading the castle, and the castle occasionally making a shrewd shot at the gunboats, which also, oftener than the castle, were startled by the plunging fire of our naval battery. On the arrival of my Commandant all these futile operations died away. The General and the Admiral equally relied upon the resources of his science and the natural energy of his powerful mind, and after some loss from irregular experiments, no one was suffered to interfere with his plan of operations.
He went with us to the embouchure of the ravine to have a good view of the castle from head to foot; and whilst he stood with his uplifted telescope carefully examining the nature of its defences, a cannon-ball very nearly struck him, and covered him with sand; but he never even lowered his telescope or remitted his attentive speculation, and only showed that he was aware of the fact by saying, as he continued to look through his glass, “What asses, to fire in that way at an individual!”
It seemed to my inexperience that this was standing fire tolerably well—brave and invincible Lefebure! It was as he stood just so, with his eagle glance bent on the foe, the last to quit a ruined fort he was ordered to evacuate, that in after years a cannon-ball struck his breast, and severed his brave spirit from his noble form.[10]
That there might be no disappointment in the stores expected from Messina, I was desired to cross the Faro, superintend their embarkation, and return with them. For this purpose I took one of the Calabrese boats which lay on the beach.
The warders of the castle seeing a British officer put off in a boat, honoured us with a shot or two, to the great and undissembled terror of the boatmen, while I was doing all I could to imitate the cool indifference of our Commandant on the preceding day; but we soon got out of their range, and they ceased to fire, which made me wonder the more to see that the boatmen were going a devious course, sometimes one way, sometimes another. “What now,” said I, “body of Pluto! what ails the rogues?”
“Zitto! zitto! cellenza!” they whispered, and with their eloquent hands at once motioned me to be quiet, and to come forward to the prow. There on the very peak one of the men, having thrown off his jacket and shirt, stood up, as straight as a mast, with his flat hands pressed together on his breast, and looking down intensely upon the sea. Following the direction of his eyes, I perceived at a great depth, in the bright blue sea, rowing itself contentedly along, a turtle of a size uncommon in these waters. With great dexterity they so managed the boat as to follow closely the course of the turtle; and when they had brought the prow of the boat nearly over him, the man who stood there, lifting his joined hands above his head, turned himself over, and went head foremost like an arrow into the sea.
In a moment up he came again, bearing the dripping, gasping turtle on its back, in his two hands, clear above the water, flapping its oary legs, and gasping with its hawk’s beak; the man treading the water, panting and laughing at his exploit, and his delighted companions, as they relieved him of his load, all applauding him at once, helping him in, and saying, “Bravo, Signor, bravissimo! La Maestro! da capo! et viva!”
I thought I never saw a neater bit of fishing. A small silver coin served to make the turtle my own, and I determined to take him back with me to see what we could make of him.