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Our port was full of frightened shipping steamers, brigs, and schooners of all sizes and nations; and since it was our misfortune that Napoleon spent his exile in Elba at Porto Ferrato instead of Porto Longone, we amused ourselves with looking at the vessels and the white town and the soft hills, instead of hunting up dead lion's tracks.
It appeared that the storm had really been dangerous. Instead of being only six hours from Naples, as we ought to be at this time, we were got no further than Porto Longone, in the Isle of Elba. We woke in a quiet, sheltered little bay, whence we could only behold, not feel, the storm left far out upon the open sea.
I was reconducted on board my galley with music and a discharge of the artillery, and sailed to Port Mahon, and thence through the Gulf of Lyons to the canal between Corsica and Sardinia, where our ship was very nearly cast away upon a sandbank; but with great difficulty we got her off and reached Porto Longone. There we quitted the galley, and went by land to Piombino.
I was reconducted on board my galley with music and a discharge of the artillery, and sailed to Port Mahon, and thence through the Gulf of Lyons to the canal between Corsica and Sardinia, where our ship was very nearly cast away upon a sandbank; but with great difficulty we got her off and reached Porto Longone. There we quitted the galley, and went by land to Piombino.
I was reconducted on board my galley with music and a discharge of the artillery, and sailed to Port Mahon, and thence through the Gulf of Lyons to the canal between Corsica and Sardinia, where our ship was very nearly cast away upon a sandbank; but with great difficulty we got her off and reached Porto Longone. There we quitted the galley, and went by land to Piombino.
We set out from Porto Longone that night at eight o'clock, and next evening, driving through much-abated storm southward into calm waters and clear skies, reached Naples.
"From what passed this morning, Captain Cuffe has thought it probable that Monsieur Yvard, for some reason best known to himself, would come back here as soon as he was rid of us, or that, finding himself on the south side of the island, he might put into Porto Longone; and, had I not met him here, I was to get a horse and ride across to the latter place and make my arrangements there.
But he wandered away, wishful to leave Italy for good and all, and was captured far from his home by some policemen who were looking for another man, and who nearly fainted when he pronounced his name. After a sensational trial, they sentenced him to thirty odd years' imprisonment; he is now languishing in the fortress of Porto Longone on Elba.
Whoever has looked into this Spanish citadel will not envy him. Of the lovely little bay, of the loadstone mountain, of the romantic pathway to the hermitage of Monserrato or the glittering beach at Rio of all the charms of Porto Longone he knows nothing, despite a lengthy residence on the spot.
The Portas remained in my house, and set fire to my vineyard at Longone. They killed my son Gregorio. My daughter Ginevra and my wife, having taken the sacrament that morning, escaped; the Virgin protected them. When I returned I found no house; my feet were in its ashes as I searched for it. Suddenly they struck against the body of Gregorio; I recognized him in the moonlight.
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