But the little man persevered, and finally with sweating brow arrived at the barracks.
A soldier carried in the letter to his colonel and presently returned to usher Uncle John through the vast building, up a flight of steps, and so to a large covered balcony suspended many hundred feet above the Via Partenope, where the hotel was situated.
Here was seated a group of officers, watching intently the cloud that marked the location of the volcano.

Colonel Angeli, big and bluff, his uniform gorgeous, his dark, heavy moustaches carefully waxed, his handsome face as ingenuous and merry as a schoolboy's, greeted the American with a gracious courtesy that made Uncle John feel quite at his ease.

When he heard of the nieces the Italian made a grimace and then laughed.
"I am despairing, signore," said he, in English sufficiently strangulated to be amusing but nevertheless quite comprehensible, "that you and the sweet signorini are to see our lovely Naples under tribulations so very great.

But yesterday, in all the world is no city so enchanting, so brilliant, so gay.

To-day--look! is it not horrible?
Vesuvio is sick, and Naples mourns until the tyrant is well again." "But the danger," said Uncle John.