The news that the King of Naples had landed occasioned some excitement in Bastia, and many Corsican officers hastened to Vescovato to offer him their services. The commandant of Bastia, Colonel Verrière, became alarmed. He sent an officer with a detachment of gendarmes to Vescovato, with orders to make themselves masters of Joachim's person. But the people of Vescovato instantly ran to arms, and prepared to defend the sacred laws of hospitality and their guest. The troop of gendarmes returned without accomplishing their object. When the report spread that King Murat had appealed to the hospitality of the Corsicans, and that his person was threatened, the people flocked in arms from all the villages in the neighbourhood, and formed a camp at Vescovato for the protection of their guest, so that on the following day Murat saw himself at the head of a small army. Poor Joachim was enchanted with the _evvivas_ of the Corsicans. It rested entirely with himself whether he should assume the crown of Corsica, but he thought only of his beautiful Naples. The sight of a huzzaing crowd made him once more feel like a king. "And if these Corsicans," said he, "who owe me nothing in the world, exhibit such generous kindness, how will my Neapolitans receive me, on whom I have conferred so many benefits?" His determination to regain Naples became immoveably firm; the fate of Napoleon, after leaving the neighbouring Elba, and landing as adventurer on the coast of France, did not deter him. The son of fortune was resolved to try his last throw, and play for a kingdom or death. Great numbers of officers and gentlemen meanwhile visited the house of the Ceccaldi from far and near, desirous of seeing and serving Murat. He had formed his plan. He summoned from Elba the Baron Barbarà, one of his old officers of Marine, a Maltese who had fled to Porto Longone, in order to take definite measures with the advice of one who was intimately acquainted with the Calabrian coast. He secretly despatched a Corsican to Naples, to form connexions and procure money there. He purchased three sailing-vessels in Bastia, which were to take him and his followers on board at Mariana, but it came to the ears of the French, and they laid an embargo on them. In vain did men of prudence and insight warn Murat to desist from the foolhardy undertaking. He had conceived the idea--and nothing could convince him of his mistake--that the Neapolitans were warmly attached to him, that he only needed to set foot on the Calabrian coast, in order to be conducted in triumph to his castle; and he was encouraged in this belief by men who came to him from Naples, and told him that King Ferdinand was hated there, and that people longed for nothing so ardently as to have Murat again for their king.