Murat looked at the captain with an expression which it would be
impossible to describe; then without deigning to answer, he signed to
Cagelli to move away, while his other hand went to his pistol. Giotgio
Pellegrino perceived the movement.

"Down, captain, down!" he cried. The captain obeyed. Immediately a
bullet whistled over his head and brushed Murat's head.

"Fire!" commanded Franceschetti.

"Down with your arms!" cried Murat.

Waving his handkerchief in his right hand, he made a step towards the
peasants, but at the same moment a number of shots were fired, an officer
and two or three men fell. In a case like this, when blood has begun to
flow, there is no stopping it.

Murat knew this fatal truth, and his course of action was rapidly decided
on. Before him he had five hundred armed men, and behind him a precipice
thirty feet high: he sprang from the jagged rock on which he was
standing, and alighting on the sand, jumped up safe and sound. General
Franceschetti and his aide-de-camp Campana were able to accomplish the
jump in the same way, and all three went rapidly down to the sea through
the little wood which lay within a hundred yards of the shore, and which
hid them for a few moments from their enemies.

As they came out of the wood a fresh discharge greeted them, bullets
whistled round them, but no one was hit, and the three fugitives went on
down to the beach.