Page:Wonderful magazine of strange adventures, singular occurrences, and remarkable incidents.pdf/2



the period when Murat was about to invade Sicily, the Chevalier R, Paymaster-General of the Neapolitan forces, was travelling through Calabria for the purpose of joining the army, having been to Naples to make arrangements for the transmission of a quantity of specie. He had sent on his servant before him, to prepare his quarters at the town of -, expecting to arrive there himself by night-fall; but, the day being very sultry, he had loitered on the road, and, at nine o’clock in the evening, found that he was still at a considerable distance from the proposed end of his journey. He was so much harassed and fatigued that he determined to put up for the night at the first convenient house. He at length entered an old romantic building on the road-side, inhabited by a man and a wife, the former a stout muscular figure, with a swarthy countenance almost wholly shrouded in a mass of bushy whiskers and mustachoes. The traveller was received with civility; and, after partaking of a hearty supper, was conducted, up a