Everything was in high gala, and the first waltz had begun, when the weather, which had been as dry as a bone all the summer till that moment, suddenly opened out; and it did not rain, but it poured in buckets, with tremendous thunder and lightning. It just lasted two hours, putting out all our lamps, damping our fireworks, reducing our transparencies to pulp; there was a regular _sauve qui peut_ to the inn. The police went for the drinking-booth, and were soon incapable; the mob broke in; they seized all the best things to eat and drink, they jumped on the plates and dishes and broke them. Richard looked up to the sky and ejaculated, "So like Provy!" I cried with rage and mortification for a few minutes, and then, rallying round, Richard and I got a party of young men to the rescue, who went and cleared the grounds, already over ankle-deep in mud; they rescued all that was left of food and drink. I got another party to clear away the furniture of the lower part of the Inn, set the two bands to work in different parts, and my friends to dancing, whilst my aide-de-camps and I rigged up several supper-rooms. I had forty waiters from Lloyd's, but half of them had followed the example of the police. Our friends, quite unconscious of the havoc behind the scenes, danced right merrily the whole night, and supped, and were good-natured enough to enjoy themselves thoroughly with the greatest good humour; and the party did not break up until five. I went out into the back scenes, where I found that my own things were being sold at the bar of the inn, to our own Squadron's bandsmen, at a big price. I soon put a stop to that, and obliged the vendors to restore them their money, and gave them their suppers and wine. It was a pandemonium. The natives were all too far gone to know me, so that I could hardly get any order obeyed; they were breaking bottles of wine, two together, like clashing cymbals. The tipsy coachmen were dancing with the tipsy villagers, and every now and then they jumped on a dish, or destroyed property in other ways. It was not encouraging, but it was useless to struggle against the inevitable, so I only saw that the Squadron bandsmen got all they wanted without paying for it. (Such is the wild animal when it can do what it likes without restraint.) Meanwhile we managed to do a lot of fireworks, and everything went off beautifully. After all our guests were departed, Everard Primrose and Mr. Welby, the well-known popular _attaché_, finding their coachman helplessly drunk, put him inside the carriage, and got on the box and drove themselves down; and the very last thing of all was seeing our staggering, hiccoughing policemen into omnibuses to go down to Trieste. Thus ended our first _fête_ for the Squadron. The damage the natives did us was immense, as we borrowed all our plates and dishes from a Company, and any one can imagine what that would be, to give a sit-down supper to eight hundred people. [Sidenote: _Our Squadron leaves_.]