How they brought the King's pictures, a vast number by the greatest masters of Italy, and his sculptures, the most famous of antiquity and some of them of enormous weight, is a yet more wonderful story; but it is very long, and I should diminish credence in what I have written above if I attempted to tell it here. And the account of how on the Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the 18th and 19th, we moved them all on board the _Vanguard_ would pass belief. There were above five hundred barrels of money and plate and such; and of the great cases of paintings and sculptures I can give no idea of the number or the bulk. All these we had on board as stores, cleverly collected by Sir William in the case of the Royal dockyard falling into the hands of traitors. The _lazzaroni_ had no such dread of our taking stores as they had of our taking their King. Indeed, since they looked to us as their best friends, they were glad to see us getting into trim; and all classes in Naples, even the overt or skulking sympathisers of the French, expected no less than that we should be taking in all manner of supplies. The gold, and the diamonds, and the works of art, therefore, which had been introduced into the Embassy with much laboured secrecy, were carted down to our boats with such a strong force of sailors and marines as precluded anything like complete concealment, though it was managed at night, so that the nature of the packages might pass as alleged. The presence of the Admiral, too, at such a time, was so natural, that he shifted from the Embassy on board his flagship without awaking distrust in the large number of people, who could not outstay the departure of the British ships. Matters were now fast approaching the crisis. CHAPTER XX.--How the _Vanguard_ took the Royal Family to Palermo in the greatest Storm The Admiral ever knew. "_Most Secret._ "Three barges and the small cutter of the _Alcmena_, armed with cutlasses only, to be at the _Victoria_ at half-past seven o'clock precisely. Only one barge to be at the wharf, the others to lay on their oars at the outside of the rocks--the small barge of the _Vanguard_ to be at the wharf. The above boats to be on board the _Alcmena_ before seven o'clock, under the direction of Captain Hope. _Grapnells to be in the boats._ "All the other boats of the _Vanguard_ and _Alcmena_ to be armed with cutlasses, and the launches with carronades to assemble on board the _Vanguard_, under the direction of Captain Hardy, and to put off from her at half-past eight o'clock precisely, to _row half-way_ towards the _Mola Figlio_. These boats to have four or _six soldiers in them_. "_In case assistance is wanted by me, false fires will be burnt._ "Nelson. "_The Alcmena to be ready to slip in the night, if necessary._"