"Aye, and that would make you first. Well, sir, even if you didn't sink her it was no reason for letting her escape."

"We could not prevent it, Captain Cuffe. I had a lookout set upon her—one of the very best men in Porto Ferrajo, as everybody will tell you, sir; and I made the signals of the lamp and the blue-lights, as agreed upon; and, the ship answering, I naturally thought all was as it should be, until—"

"And who burnt the rockets off here where we are at this moment? They deceived me, for I took them to be signals of their presence from the Weasel or the Sparrow. When I saw those rockets, Griffin, I was just as certain of the Few-Folly as I am now of having my own ship!"

"Yes, sir, those rockets did all the mischief; for I have since learned that, as soon as the first one was thrown, Master Yvard tripped his kedge and went out of the bay as quietly as one goes out of a dining-room when he don't wish to disturb the company."

"Aye, he took French leave, the b—y sans culotte" returned the captain, putting himself in a better humor with his own pun. "But did you see nothing of all this?"

"The first I knew of the matter, sir, was seeing the lugger gliding along under the rocks so close in that you might have jumped aboard her; and it was too late to stop her. Before those lazy far nientes could have pricked and primed, she was out of gun-shot."

"Lazy what?" demanded the captain.

"Far nientes, sir; which is a nickname we give these siesta-gentry, you know, Captain Cuffe."

"I know nothing about it, sir, and I'll thank you always to speak to me in English, Mr. Griffin. That is a language which I flatter myself I understand, and it's quite good enough for all my wants."

"Yes, sir, and for any man's wants. I'm sure, I am sorry I can speak Italian, since it has led to this mistake."

"Poh—poh—Griffin, you mustn't lay everything to heart that comes wrong end foremost. Dine with me to-day, and we'll talk the matter over at leisure."



CHAPTER IX.

"Now in the fervid noon the smooth bright sea Heaves slowly, for the wandering winds are dead That stirred it into foam. The lonely ship Rolls wearily, and idly flap the sails Against the creaking masts. The lightest sound Is lost not on the ear, and things minute Attract the observant eye."

RICHARDSON.

Thus terminated the setting-down, like many others that Captain Cuffe had resolved to give, but which usually ended in a return to good-nature and reason. The steward was told to set a plate for Mr. Griffin among the other guests, and then the commander of the frigate followed the lieutenant on deck. Here he found every officer in the ship, all looking at le Feu-Follet with longing eyes, and most of them admiring her appearance, as she lay on the mirrorlike Mediterranean, with the two light sails just holding her stationary.

"A regular-built snake-in-the-grass!" growled the boatswain, Mr. Strand, who was taking a look at the lugger over the hammock cloths of the waist, as he stood on the heel of a spare topmast to do so; "I never fell in with a scamp that had a more d—n-my-eyes look!"

This was said in a sort of soliloquy, for Strand was not exactly privileged to address a quarter-deck officer on such an occasion, though several stood within hearing, and was far too great a man to enlighten his subordinates with his cogitations. It was overheard by Cuffe, however, who just at that instant stepped into the gangway to make an examination for himself.

"It is a snake-out-of the grass, rather, Strand," observed the captain, for he could speak to whom he pleased, without presumption or degradation. "Had she stayed in port, now, she would have been in the grass, and we might have scotched her."

"Well, your honor, we can English her, as it is; and that'll be quite as nat'ral, and quite as much to the purpose, as Scotching her, any day," answered Strand, who, being a native of London, had a magnificent sort of feeling toward all the dependencies of the empire, and to whom the word scotch, in that sense, was Greek, though he well understood what it meant "to clap a Scotchman on a rope"; "we are likely to have a flat calm all the morning, and our boats are in capital order; and, then, nothing will be more agreeable to our gentlemen than a row."

Strand was a gray-headed seaman, and he had served with Captain Cuffe when the latter was a midshipman, and had even commanded the top of which the present boatswain had been the captain. He knew the "cut of the captain's jib" better than any other man in the Proserpine, and often succeeded with his suggestions, when Winchester and the other lieutenants failed. His superior now turned round and looked him intently in the face, as if struck with the notion the other thus indirectly laid before him. This movement was noted; and, at a sign secretly given by Winchester, the whole crew gave three hearty cheers; Strand leading off as soon as he caught the idea. This was the only manner in which the crew of a man-of-war can express their wishes to their commander; it being always tolerated in a navy to hurrah, by way of showing the courage of a ship's company. Cuffe walked aft in a thoughtful manner and descended to his cabin again; but a servant soon came up, to say that the captain desired to see the first lieutenant.

"I do not half like this boat-service in open daylight, Winchester," observed the senior, beckoning to the other to take a chair. "The least bungling may spoil it all; and then it's ten to one but your ship goes half-manned for a twelvemonth, until you are driven to pressing from colliers and neutrals."

"But we hope, sir, there'll be no bungling in anything that the Proserpine undertakes. Nine times in ten an English man-of-war succeeds when she makes a bold dash in boats against one of these picaroons. This lugger is so low in the water, too, that it will be like stepping from one cutter into another to get upon her decks; and then, sir, I suppose, you don't doubt what Englishmen will do?"

"Aye, Winchester, once on her deck, I make no doubt you'd carry her; but it may not be so easy as you imagine to get on her deck. Of all duty to a captain, this of sending off boats is the most unpleasant. He cannot go in person, and if anything unfortunate turns up he never forgives himself. Now, it's a very different thing with a fight in which all share alike, and the good or evil comes equally on all hands."

"Quite true, Captain Cuffe; and yet this is the only chance that the lieutenants have for getting ahead a little out of the regular course. I have heard, sir, that you were made commander for cutting out some coasters in the beginning of the war."

"You have not been misinformed, and a devil of a risk we all ran. Luck saved us—and that was all. One more fire from a cursed carronade would have given a Flemish account of the whole party; for, once get a little under, and you suffer like game in a batteau." Captain Cuffe wished to say battue; but, despising foreign languages, he generally made sad work with them whenever he did condescend to resort to their terms, however familiar. "This Raoul Yvard is a devil incarnate himself at this boarding work, and is said to have taken off the head of a master's mate of the Theseus with one clip of his sword when he retook that ship's prize in the affair of last winter—that which happened off Alicant!"

"I'll warrant you, sir, the master's mate was some slender-necked chap that might better have been at home, craning at the girls as they come out of a church-door. I should like to see Raoul Yvard or any Frenchman who was ever born take off my head at a single clip!"

"Well, Winchester, to be frank with you, I should not. You are a good first; and that is an office in which a man usually wants all the head he has; and I'm not at all certain you have any to spare. I wonder if one could not hire a felucca, or something larger than a boat, in this place, by means of which we could play a trick upon this fellow, and effect our purpose quite as well as by going up to him in our open boats bull-dog fashion?"

"No question of it at all, sir; Griffin says there are a dozen feluccas in port here, all afraid to budge an inch in consequence of this chap's being in the offing. Now one of these trying to slip along shore might just serve as a bait for him, and then he would be famously hooked."

"I think I have it, Winchester. You understand; we have not yet been seen to communicate with the town; and luckily our French colors have been flying all the morning Our head, too, is in-shore, and we shall drift so far to the eastward in a few minutes as will shut in our hull, if not our upper sails, from the lugger where she now lies. As soon as this is done you shall be off with forty picked men for the shore. Engage a felucca and come out stealing along the rocks as close as you can, as if distrusting us. In due time we will chase you in the boats, and then you must make for the lugger for protection as fast as you can, when, betwixt the two, I'll answer for it, you get this Master Yvard, by fair means or foul."

Winchester was delighted with the scheme, and in less than five minutes orders were issued for the men to be detailed and armed. Then a conference was held as to all the minor arrangements; when, the ship having become shut in from the lugger by the promontory, as expected, the boats departed. Half an hour later, or just as the Proserpine, after wearing, had got near the point where the lugger would be again open, the boats returned and were run up. Presently the two vessels were again in sight of each other, everything on board of each remaining apparently in statu quo. Thus far, certainly, the stratagem had been adroitly managed. To add to it, the batteries now fired ten or twelve guns at the frigate, taking very good care not to hit her; which the Proserpine returned, under the French ensign, having used the still greater precaution of drawing the shot. All this was done by an arrangement between Winchester and Andrea Barrofaldi, and with the sole view to induce Raoul Yvard to fancy that he was still believed to be an Englishman by the worthy vice-governatore, while the ship in the offing was taken for an enemy. A light air from the southward, which lasted from eight to nine o'clock, allowed the frigate to get somewhat more of an offing the while, placing her seemingly beyond the reach of danger.

During the prevalence of the light air mentioned, Raoul Yvard did not see fit to stir tack or sheet, as it is termed among seamen. Le Feu-Follet remained so stationary that, had she been by compass from any station on the shore, her direction would not have varied a degree the whole time. But this hour of comparative breeze sufficed to enable Winchester to get out of the harbor with la Divina Providenza, the felucca he had hired, and to round the promontory, under the seeming protection of the guns by which it was crowned; coming in view of the lugger precisely as the latter relieved her man at the helm for ten o'clock. There were eight or nine men visible on the felucca's deck, all dressed in the guise of Italians, with caps and striped shirts of cotton. Thirty-five men were concealed in the hold.

Thus far everything was favorable to the wishes of Captain Cuffe and his followers. The frigate was about a league from the lugger, and half that distance from la Divina Providenza; the latter had got fairly to sea and was slowly coming to a situation from which it might seem reasonable and a matter of course for the Proserpine to send boats in chase; while the manner in which she gradually drew nearer to the lugger was not such as to excite distrust or to appear in the least designed. The wind, too, had got to be so light as to favor the whole scheme.

It is not to be supposed that Raoul Yvard and his followers were unobservant of what was passing. It is true that the latter wilfully protracted his departure, under the pretence that it was safer to have his enemy in sight during the day, knowing how easy it would be to elude him in the dark; but, in reality, that he might prolong the pleasure of having Ghita on board; and it is also true that he had passed a delightful hour that morning in the cabin; but, then, his understanding eye noted the minutest fact that occurred, and his orders were always ready to meet any emergency that might arise. Very different was the case with Ithuel. The Proserpine was his bane; and, even while eating his breakfast, which he took on the heel of the bowsprit, expressly with that intent, his eye was seldom a minute off the frigate, unless it was for the short period she was shut in by the land. It was impossible for any one in the lugger to say whether her character was or was not known in Porto Ferrajo; but the circumstance of the blue-lights burnt in the government-house itself, and witnessed by Ithuel, rendered the latter, to say the least, probable, and induced more caution than might otherwise have been shown. Still, there was no reason to suspect the character of the felucca, and the confident manner in which she came down toward the lugger, though considerably in-shore of her, gave reason to believe that she at least was ignorant that le Feu-Follet was an enemy.

"That felucca is the craft which lay near the landing," quietly observed Raoul, who had now come on the forecastle with a view to converse with Ithuel; "her name is la Divina Providenza; she is given to smuggling between Leghorn and Corsica, and is probably bound to the latter at this moment. It is a bold step, too, to stand directly for her port under such circumstances!"

"Leghorn is a free port," returned Ithuel; "and smuggling is not needed."

"Aye, free as to friends, but not free to come and go between enemies. No port is free in that sense; it being treason for a craft to communicate with the foe, unless she happen to be le Feu-Follet," observed Raoul, laughing; "we are privileged, mon brave!"

"Corsica or Capraya, she'll reach neither to-day, unless she find more wind. I do not understand why the man has sailed with no more air than will serve to blow out a pocket-handkerchief."

"These little feluccas, like our little lugger, slip along even when there seems to be no wind at all. Then he may be bound to Bastia; in which case he is wise in getting an offing before the zephyr sets in for the afternoon. Let him get a league or two out here more to the northwest, and he can make a straight wake to Bastia, after his siesta is over."

"Aye, there go those greedy Englishmen a'ter him!" said Ithuel; "it's as I expected; let 'em see the chance of making a guinea, and they'll strive for it, though it be ag'in law or ag'in natur'. Now, what have they to do with a Neapolitan felucca, England being a sworn friend of Naples?"

Raoul made no reply to this, but stood watching the movement in silence. The reader will readily enough understand that Ithuel's remark was elicited by the appearance of the boats, which, five in number, at that instant pulled off from the frigate's side and proceeded steadily toward the felucca.

It may be necessary now to mention the relative positions of the parties, the hour, and the precise state of the weather, with a view to give the reader clear ideas of the events that succeeded. Le Feu-Follet had not materially changed her place since her jib-sheet was first hauled over. She still lay about a league a little north-of-west from the residence of Andrea Barrofaldi, and in plain view of it; a deep bay being south of her and abeam. No alterations had been made in her canvas or her helm; most of the first being still in the brails and the latter down. As the head of the frigate had been kept to the westward for the last hour, she had forged some distance in that direction, and was now quite as near the lugger as was the promontory, though nearly two miles off the land. Her courses were hauled up, on account of the lightness of the air; but all her upper sails stood, and were carefully watched and trimmed, in order to make the most of the cats'-paws, or rather of the breathings of the atmosphere, which occasionally caused the royals to swell outward. On the whole, she might be drawing nearer to the lugger at the rate of about a knot in an hour. La Divina Providenza was just out of gun-shot from the frigate and about a mile from the lugger when the boats shoved off from the former, though quite near the land, just opening the bay so often named. The boats, of course, were pulling in a straight line from the vessel they had just left toward that of which they were in pursuit.

As to the time the day had advanced as far as eleven, which is a portion of the twenty-four hours when the Mediterranean, in the summer months, is apt to be as smooth as a mirror and as calm as if it never knew a tempest. Throughout the morning there had been some irregularity in the currents of air; the southerly breeze, generally light and frequently fickle, having been even more light and baffling than common. Still, as has been seen, there was sufficient air to force a vessel through the water; and, had Raoul been as diligent as the people of the two other craft, he might at that moment have been off the western end of the island and far out of harm's way. As it was, he had continued watching the result, but permitting all the other parties gradually to approach him.

It must be allowed that the ruse of the felucca was well planned; and it now seemed about to be admirably executed. Had it not been for Ithuel's very positive knowledge of the ship—his entire certainty of her being his old prison, as he bitterly called her—it is not improbable that the lugger's crew might have been the dupe of so much well-acted ingenuity; and as it was, opinions were greatly divided, Raoul himself being more than half disposed to fancy that his American ally, for once, was wrong, and that the ship in sight was actually what she professed to be—a cruiser of the republic.

Both Winchester, who was in la Divina Providenza, and Griffin, who commanded the boats, played their parts in perfection. They understood too well the character of the wily and practised foe with whom they had to deal, to neglect the smallest of the details of their well-concerted plan. Instead of heading toward the lugger as soon as the chase commenced, the felucca appeared disposed to enter the bay and to find an anchorage under the protection of a small battery that had been planted for this express purpose near its head. But the distance was so great as obviously to render such an experiment bootless; and, after looking in that direction a few minutes, the head of la Divina Providenza was laid off shore, and she made every possible effort to put herself under the cover of the lugger. All this was done in plain view of Raoul, whose glass was constantly at his eye, and who studied the smallest movement with jealous distrust. Winchester, fortunately for his purpose, was a dark-complexioned man of moderate stature and with bushy whiskers, such as a man-of-war's-man is apt to cultivate on a long cruise; and, in his red Phrygian cap, striped shirt, and white cotton trousers, he looked the Italian as well as could have been desired. The men in sight, too, had been selected for their appearance, several of them being actually foreigners, born on the shores of the Mediterranean; it being seldom indeed that the crew of an English or an American vessel of war does not afford a representation of half the maritime nations of the earth. These men exhibited a proper degree of confusion and alarm, too, running to and fro as soon as the chase became lively; exerting themselves, but doing it without order and concert. At length, the wind failing almost entirely, they got out two sweeps and began to pull lustily; the real as well as the apparent desire being to get as near as possible to the lugger.

"Peste!" exclaimed Raoul; "all this seems right—what if the frigate should be French after all? These men in the boats look like my brave compatriotes!"

"They are regular John Bulls," answered Ithuel, positively, "and the ship is the spiteful Proserpyne," for so the New Hampshire man always called his old prison. "As for them French hats and the way they have of rowing, they act it all for a take-in. Just let a six-pound shot in among 'em, and see how they'll throw off their French airs and take to their English schooling."

"I'll not do that; for we might injure a friend. What are those fellows in the felucca about now?"

"Why, they've got a small gun—yes, it's a twelve-pound carronade, under the tarpaulin, for'rard of their foremast, and they're clearin' it away for sarvice. We shall have something doin' 'fore the end of the week!"

"Bien—it is as you say—and, voila, they train the piece on the boats!"

As this was said, the felucca was half concealed in smoke. Then came the discharge of the gun. The shot was seen skipping along the water, at a safe distance from the leading boat certainly, and yet sufficiently near to make it pass for indifferent gunnery. This leading boat was the Proserpine's launch, which carried a similar carronade on its grating forward, and not half a minute was suffered to pass before the fire was returned. So steady were the men, and so nicely were all parts of this plot calculated, that the shot came whistling through the air in a direct line for the felucca, striking its mainyard about half-way between the mast and the peak of the sail, letting the former down by the run.

"Human natur'!" ejaculated Ithuel—"this is acting up to the contract, dollars and cents! Captain Rule, they shoot better in sport than when they're in downright airnest."

"This looks like real work," answered Raoul. "A man does not often shoot away the mainyard of his friend on purpose."

As soon as the crews of the boats saw the end of the yard come down, they ceased rowing and gave three hearty cheers, taking the signal from Griffin, who stood erect in the stern of the launch to give it.

"Bah!" cried Raoul—"these are English John Bulls without a shadow of doubt. Who ever knew the men of the republic shout like so many Italian fantoccini pulled by wires! Ah! Messieurs les Anglais, you have betrayed your secret by your infernal throats; now look to hear us tell the remainder of the story"

Ithuel rubbed his hands with delight, perfectly satisfied that Raoul could no longer be deceived, though the fire between the felucca and the launch was kept up with spirit, the shooting being such as might have done credit to a bona fide conflict. All this time the sweep of the felucca were plied, the boats advancing at least two feet to the chase's one. La Divina Providenza might now have been three hundred yards from the lugger: and the launch, the nearest of the pursuers, about the same distance astern of the felucca. Ten minutes more would certainly bring the seeming combatants alongside of each other.

Raoul ordered the sweeps of le Feu-Follet to be run out and manned. At the same time her guns, twelve-pound carronades, were cast loose and primed. Of these she had four of a side, while the two sixes on her forecastle were prepared for similar service. When everything was ready, the twelve sweeps dropped into the water, as by a common instinct, and a powerful effort started the lugger ahead. Her jib and jigger were both brailed at that instant. A single minute sufficed to teach Winchester how hopeless pursuit would be in the felucca, if not in the boats themselves, should the lugger endeavor to escape in this manner; it being quite practicable for her strong crew to force her through the water by means of her sweeps alone from three to three and a half knots in the hour. But flight did not appear to be her object; for her head was laid toward la Divina Providenza, as if, deceived by the artifice of the English, she intended to prevent the capture of the felucca and to cover a friend.

Raoul, however, understood himself far better than this supposition would give reason to suppose. He swept the lugger up in a line with la Divina Providenza and the boats, in the first place, as the position in which she would be the least likely to suffer from the fire of the latter, well knowing that whatever shot were thrown were purposely sent so high as to do no mischief, and, in the second place, that he might bring his enemies in a single range from his own guns. In the mean while, the felucca and the boats not only continued to use their carronades, but they commenced on both sides a brisk fire of musketry; the former being now distant only a hundred yards from le Feu-Follet, exceedingly hard pressed by her adversaries, so far as appearances were concerned. There being no wind at all, at this juncture, the little there had been having been entirely killed by the concussions of the guns, the sea was getting to be fast covered with smoke; the felucca, in particular, showing more than common of the wreathy canopy over her decks and about her spars; for in truth powder was burnt in considerable quantities in different parts of the vessel with this express object. Ithuel observed, too, that in the midst of this confusion and cloud the crew of la Divina Providenza was increasing in numbers instead of diminishing by the combat, four sweeps next being out, each manned by three men, while near twenty more were shortly visible, running to and fro, and shouting to each other in a language that was intended to be Italian, but which sounded much more, in his practised ears, like bastard English. The felucca was not fifty yards distant when this clamor became the loudest, and the crisis was near. The cheers of the boats on the other side of her proclaimed the quick approach of Griffin and his party; the bows of la Divina Providenza having been laid, in a species of blind haste, directly in a line which would carry her athwart-hawse of le Feu-Follet.

"Mes enfans," shouted Raoul—"soyez calmes—Fire!"

The whole of the five guns, loaded heavily with canister, were discharged into the smoke of la Divina Providenza. The shrieks that succeeded sufficiently proclaimed with what effect. A pause of solemn, wondering silence followed on the part of the English, and then arose a manly shout, as if, prepared for every contingency, they were resolved to brave the worst. The boats were next seen coming round the bows and stern of the felucca, dashing earnestly at their real enemy, while their two carronades returned the fire, this time loaded and aimed with deadly intent. But it was too late for success. As Griffin in the launch came out of la Divina Providenz'a smoke he saw the lugger's sails all opened and filled with the dying effort of the southerly air. So light, however, was le Feu-Follet that a duck could hardly have sailed away more readily from the fowler, than this little craft shot ahead, clearing the smoke, and leaving her pursuers an additional hundred yards behind her. As the air seemed likely to stand long enough to place his party in extreme jeopardy, under the fire of the French, Winchester promptly ordered the boats to relinquish the pursuit and to rally round the felucca. This command was reluctantly obeyed, when a moment was given to both sides for deliberation.

Le Feu-Follet had sustained no injury worth mentioning; but the English had not less than a dozen men slain or hurt. Among the latter was Winchester himself; and as he saw that any success which followed would fall principally to the share of his subordinate, his wound greatly indisposed him to pursue any further a struggle that was nearly hopeless as it was. Not so with Raoul Yvard, however. Perceiving that the frigate had taken the breeze as well as himself, and that she was stealing along in the direction of the combatants, he determined to take an ample revenge for the audacity of the attempt, and then proceed on his voyage.

The lugger accordingly tacked, and passed to windward of the felucca, delivering a close and brisk fire as she approached. At first this fire was returned, but the opposition soon ceased; and when le Feu-Follet ranged up past her adversary, a few yards to windward, it was seen that the English had deserted her to a man, carrying off their wounded. The boats were pulling through the smoke toward the bay, taking a direction opposite to that in which the lugger's head was laid. It would have been easy for the French to wear and probably to have overtaken the fugitives, sinking or capturing them to a man; but there was a touch of high chivalry in the character of Raoul Yvard, and he declared that as the artifice had been ingeniously planned and daringly attempted, he would follow up his success no further. Perhaps the appearance of Ghita on deck, imploring him to be merciful, had its influence; it is certain that not another shot did he allow to be fired at the enemy. Instead of pursuing her advantage in this manner, the lugger took in her after-sails, wore short round on her heel, came to the wind to leeward of the felucca, shivered all forward, set her jigger again, and luffed up so near what may be called the prize that the two vessels came together so gently as not to break an egg, as it is termed. A single rope secured the felucca to the lugger, and Raoul, Ithuel, and a few more stepped on board the former.

The decks of la Divina Providenza were reeking with blood, and grape and canister were sticking in handfuls in different parts of the vessel. Three dead bodies were found in her hold, but nothing having life was met with on board. There was a tar-bucket filled at hand, and this was placed beneath the hatch, covered with all the combustible materials that could be laid hold of, and set on fire. So active were the flames at that dry season that Raoul regretted he had not taken the precaution to awaken them after he had removed his own vessel; but the southerly air continuing, he was enabled to get to a safe distance before they actually ascended the felucca's rigging and seized upon her sails.

Ten minutes were thus lost, and they had sufficed to carry the boats out of gunshot in shore, and to bring the frigate very nearly down within gunshot from the southeast. But, hauling aft all his sheets, Raoul soon took the lugger clear of her flaming prize; and then she stood toward the west end of Elba, going, as usual in so light an air, three feet to the frigate's two. The hour, however, was not favorable to the continuance of the breeze, and in ten more minutes it would have puzzled the keenest senses to have detected the slightest current of air over the surface of the sea. Such flickerings of the lamp before it burnt entirely out were common, and Raoul felt certain that there would be no more wind that day until they got the zephyr. Accordingly he directed all the sails to be hauled up, an awning to be spread over the quarter-deck, and permission was given to the people to attend to their own affairs. The frigate, too, seemed to be aware that it was the moment for the siesta of vessels as well as of men; for she clewed up her royals and topgallant-sails, brailed her jib and spanker, hauled up her courses, and lay on the water as motionless as if sticking on a shoal. The two vessels were barely long gunshot apart, and, under ordinary circumstances, the larger might have seen fit to attack the smaller in boats; but the lesson just given was a sufficient pledge to the French against the renewal of any such attempt, and they scarcely paid their neighbor's prowess the compliment to watch him. Half an hour later, when Winchester got back to the ship, limping with a hurt in his leg, and with his people exhausted and mortified, it was found that the undertaking had cost the lives of seven good men, besides the temporary suspension of the services of fifteen more.

Captain Cuffe was aware that his enterprise had failed as soon as he perceived the lugger under her canvas, playing around the felucca, and the boats held in perfect command. But when he discovered the latter pulling for the shore he was certain that they must have suffered, and he was prepared to learn a serious loss, though not one that bore so large a proportion to the whole numbers of the party sent on the expedition. Winchester he considerately declined questioning while his wound was being dressed; but Griffin was summoned to his cabin as soon as the boats were hoisted in and stowed.

"Well, Mr. Griffin, a d—d pretty scrape is this into which you have led me, among you, with your wish to go boating about after luggers and Raoul Yvards! What will the admiral say when he comes to hear of twenty-two men's being laid on the shelf, and a felucca to be paid for, as a morning's amusement?"

"Really, Captain Cuffe, we did our best; but a man might as well have attempted to put out Vesuvius with snowballs as to stand the canister of that infernal lugger! I don't think there was a square yard in the felucca that was not peppered. The men never behaved better; and down to the moment when we last cheered I was as sure of le Feu-Follet as I ever was of my own promotion."

"Aye, they needn't call her le Few-Folly any longer—the Great Folly being a better name. What the devil did you cheer for at all, sir? did you ever know a Frenchman cheer in your life? That very cheering was the cause of your being found out before you had time to close. You should have shouted vive la republique, as all their craft do when we engage them. A regular English hurrah would split a Frenchman's throat."

"I believe we did make a mistake there, sir; but I never was in an action in which we did not cheer; and when it got to be warm—or to seem warm—I forgot myself a little. But we should have had her, sir, for all that, had it not been for one thing."

"And what is that, pray? You know, Griffin, I must have something plausible to tell the admiral; it will never do to have it published in the gazette that we were thrashed by our own hallooing."

"I was about to say, Captain Cuffe, that had not the lugger fired her first broadside just as she did, and had she given us time to get out of the range of her shot, we should have come in upon her before she could have loaded again, and carried her in spite of the breeze that so much favored her. Our having three men hurt in the launch made some difference, too, and set as many oars catching crabs at a most critical instant. Everything depends on chance in these matters, you know, sir, and that was our bad luck."

"Umph! It will never do to tell Nelson that. 'Everything was going well, my lord, until three of the launch's people went to work catching crabs with their oars, which threw the boat astern.' No, no, that will never do for a gazette. Let me see, Griffin; after all, the lugger made off from you; you would have had her had she not made sail and stood to the southward and westward on a bowline."

"Yes, sir, she certainly did that. Had she not made sail as you say, nothing could have prevented our getting alongside."

"Well, then, she ran. Wind sprung up, enemy made sail—every attempt to get alongside unsuccessful. Brave fellows, cheering and doing their utmost. Not so bad an account, after all, but how about that d—d felucca? You see, she is burned to the water's edge and will go down in a few minutes."

"Very true, Captain Cuffe, but not a Frenchman entered her while we were there—"

"Yes, I now see how it was—threw all hands into the boats in chase, the felucca being too unwieldy and every effort to get alongside unsuccessful. He's a devil of a fellow, that Nelson and Bronte; and I had rather hear the thunder of ten thousand tempests than get one of his tempestuous letters. Well, I think I understand the affair now and shall speak of you all as you deserve. 'Twas a gallant thing, though it failed. You deserved success, whatever may have caused you to lose it."

In this Captain Cuffe was nearer right than in anything else he uttered on the occasion.



CHAPTER X.

"Oh! 'tis a thought sublime, that man can force A path upon the waste, can find a way Where all is trackless, and compel the winds, Those freest agents of Almighty power, To lend them untamed wings, and bear him on To distant climes."

WARE.

The situation of Ghita Caraccioli, on board the lugger, was of the most unpleasant nature during the fierce struggle we have related. Fortunately for her, this struggle was very short, Raoul having kept her in profound ignorance of the approach of any danger until the instant le Feu-Follet commenced her fire. It is true she heard the guns between the felucca and the boats, but this she had been told was an affair in which the privateer had no participation; and the reports sounding distant to one in the cabin, she had been easily deceived. While the actual conflict was going on, she was on her knees, at the side of her uncle; and the moment it ceased, she appeared on deck, and interposed to save the fugitives in the manner related.

Now, however, the scene was entirely changed. The lugger had escaped all damage worthy of notice; her decks had not been stained with blood; and her success had been as complete as could be desired. In addition to these advantages, the result removed all apprehension from the only source of danger that Raoul thought could exist as between his own vessel and the frigate, of a boat-attack in a calm; for men who had just been so roughly handled in an enterprise so well concealed would not be likely to renew the attempt while they still smarted under the influence of the late repulse. Affairs of this sort exact all the discipline and resolution that a well-regulated service can afford; and are not to be thought of under the temporary demoralization of defeat. All in the lugger, therefore, considered this collision with the Proserpine at an end, for the moment at least.

Ghita had dined, for the day had now turned some time, and the girl had come on deck to escape the confinement of a very small cabin, leaving her uncle to enjoy his customary siesta. She was seated under the awning of the quarter-deck, using her needle, as was her wont at that hour on the heights of Argentaro. Raoul had placed himself on a gunslide near her, and Ithuel was busy within a few feet of them, dissecting a spy-glass, with a view to clean its lenses.

"I suppose the most excellent Andrea Barrofaldi will sing a Te Deum for his escape from our fangs," suddenly exclaimed Raoul, laughing. "Pardie! he is a great historian and every way fit to write an account of this glorious victory, which Monsieur l'Anglais, la bas, is about to send to his government!"

"And you, Raoul, have no occasion for a Te Deum after your escape?" demanded Ghita, gently, and yet with emphasis. "Is there no God for you to thank, as well as for the vice-governatore?"

"Peste!—our French deity is little thought of just now, Ghita. Republics, as you know, have no great faith in religion—is it not so, mon brave Americain? Tell us, Etooel; have you any religion in America?"

As Ithuel had often heard Raoul's opinions on this subject and knew the prevailing state of France in this particular, he neither felt nor expressed any surprise at the question. Still, the idea ran counter to all his own notions and prejudices, he having been early taught to respect religion, even when he was most serving the devil. In a word, Ithuel was one of those descendants of Puritanism who, "God-ward," as it is termed, was quite unexceptionable, so far as his theory extended, but who, "manward," was "as the Scribes and Pharisees." Nevertheless, as he expressed it himself, "he always stood up for religion," a fact that his English companions had commented on in jokes, maintaining that he even "stood up" when the rest of the ship's company were on their knees.

"I'm a little afraid, Monsieur Rule," he answered, "that in France you have entered the rope of republicanism at the wrong end. In Ameriky, we even put religion before dollars; and if that isn't convincing I'll give it up. Now, I do wish you could see a Sunday once in the Granite State, Signorina Ghita, that you might get some notion what our western religion ra'ally is."

"All real religion—all real devotion to God—is, or ought to be, the same, Signor Ithuello, whether in the east or in the west. A Christian is a Christian, let him live or die where he may."

"That's not exactly platform, I fancy. Why, Lord bless ye, young lady, your religion, now, is no more like mine than my religion is like that of the Archbishop of Canterbury's, or Monsieur Rule's, here!"

"La mienne!" exclaimed Raoul—"I pretend to none, mon brave; there can be no likeness to nothing."

Ghita's glance was kind, rather than reproachful; but it was profoundly sorrowful.

"In what can our religion differ," she asked, "if we are both Christians? Americans or Italians, it is all the same."

"That comes of knowing nothing about Ameriky," said Ithuel, filled with the conceit of his own opinion of himself and of the part of the world from which he came. "In the first place, you have a Pope and cardinals and bishops and all such things in your religion, while we have none."

"Certainly, there is the Holy Father, and there are cardinals; but they are not my religion," answered Ghita, looking surprised. "Bishops, it is true, are appointed of God and form part of his church; and the bishop of Rome is the head of the church on earth, but nothing more!"

"Nothing more! Don't you worship images, and take off and put on garments at your prayers, and kneel down in a make-believe, profane way: and don't you turn everything into vain ceremonies?"

Had Ithuel been engaged, body and soul, in maintaining one of the propositions of the Oxford Tracts' controversy, he could not have uttered these words with greater zeal or with a more self-righteous emotion. His mind was stored with the most vulgar accusations of an exceedingly vulgar set of sectarian distinctions; and he fancied it a high proof of Protestant perfection to hold all the discarded usages in abhorrence. On the other hand, Ghita listened with surprise; for, to her, the estimation in which the rites of the Roman church are held by the great bulk of Protestants was a profound secret. The idea of worshipping an image never crossed her innocent mind; and although she often knelt before her own little ivory crucifix, she had never supposed any could be so ignorant as to confound the mere material representation of the sacrifice it was meant to portray with the divine expiation itself.

"It is decent to use proper vestments at the altar," she replied; "and its servants ought not to be clad like other men. We know it is the heart, the soul, that must be touched, to find favor with God; but this does not make the outward semblance of respect that we show even to each other the less necessary. As to worshipping images—that would be idolatry; and as bad as the poor heathens themselves."

Ithuel looked mystified; for he never doubted in the least that the worshipping of images was a material part of Catholic devotion; and, as for the Pope and the cardinals, he deemed them all as indispensable to the creed of this church, as he fancied it important in his own that the priests should not wear gowns, and that the edifices in which they worshipped should have square-topped windows. Absurd as all this may seem to-day, and wicked as it will probably appear a century hence, it formed, and forms, no small part of sectarian belief, and entered into the animosities and jealousies of those who seem to think it necessary to quarrel for the love of God. Could we but look back at our own changes of opinion, it would render us less confident of the justice of our sentiments; and, most of all, one would think that the American who has lived long enough to witness the somersets that have been thrown in the practices and creeds of most of the more modern sects of his own country, within the last quarter of a century, would come to have something like a suitable respect for the more stable and venerable divisions of the Christian world.

"Proper vestments!" repeated Ithuel, with contempt; "what vestments are wanting in the eyes of the Supreme Being? No; if I must have religion—and I know it's necessary and whullsom'—let it be a pure, naked religion that will stand to reason. Is not that your way of thinking, Monsieur Rule?"

"Ma foi, oui. Reason before all things, Ghita; and, most of all, reason in religion."

"Ah, Raoul! this it is which misleads and betrays you," returned the girl, earnestly. "Faith and a meek dependence is what makes a proper state of feeling; and yet you demand a reason of Him who created the Universe and breathed into you the breath of life!"

"Are we not reasoning creatures, Ghita," returned Raoul, gently, and yet with a sincerity and truth for the circumstances that rendered even his scepticism piquant and respectable; "and is it unreasonable to expect us to act up to our natures? Can I worship a God I do not understand?"

"Couldst thou worship one thou didst? He would cease to be a deity and would become one of ourselves were his nature and attributes brought down to the level of our comprehensions. Did one of thy followers come on this quarter-deck and insist on hearing all thine own motives for the orders given in this little felucca, how readily wouldst thou drive him back as mutinous and insolent; and yet thou wouldst question the God of the universe and pry into his mysteries!"

Raoul was mute, while Ithuel stared. It was so seldom that Ghita lost her exceeding gentleness of manner that the flush of her cheek, the severe earnestness of her eyes, the impassioned modulations of her voice, and the emphasis with which she spoke on this occasion produced a sort of awe that prevented the discourse from proceeding further, The girl herself was so much excited, that, after sitting for a minute with her hands before her face, the tears were seen forcing their way through her fingers. She then arose, and darted into the cabin, Raoul was too observant of the rules of propriety to think of following; but he sat moody and lost in thought, until Ithuel drew his attention to himself.

"Gals will be gals," said that refined and philosophical observer of the human family, "and nothing touches their natur's sooner than a little religious excitement. I dare say, if it wasn't for images and cardinals and bishops and such creatur's, the Italians (Ithuel always pronounced this word Eyetalians) would make a very good sort of Christians."

But Raoul was in no humor to converse, and as the hour had now arrived when the zephyr was to be expected, he rose, ordered the awning to be taken in, and prepared to make himself master of the state of things around him. There lay the frigate, taking her siesta, like all near; her three topsails standing, but every other sail that was loose hanging in festoons, waiting for the breeze. Notwithstanding her careless appearance, so closely had she been tended, for the last few hours, however, and so sedulously had even the smallest breath of air been improved, that Raoul started with surprise when he found how much nearer she was than when he had last looked at her. The whole trick was apparent to him at a glance, and he was compelled to acknowledge his own remissness when he perceived that he lay within the reach of the shot of his powerful foe, though still so distant as to render her also a little uncertain, more especially should a set get up. The felucca had burnt to the water's edge; but, owing to the smoothness of the water, her wreck still floated and was slowly setting into the bay, there being a slight current in that direction, where she now lay. The town was basking in the afternoon's sun, though hid from view, and the whole island of Elba had the appearance of being asleep.

"What a siesta!" said Raoul to Ithuel, as both stood on the heel of the bowsprit, looking curiously at the scene: "sea, land, mountains, bourgeois, and mariners all dozing. Bien; there is life yonder at the west, and we must get further from votre Proserpine. Call the hands, Monsieur Lieutenant. Let us get our sweeps and put the head of le Feu-Follet the other way. Peste! the lugger is so sharp, and has such a trick of going exactly where she looks, that I am afraid she has been crawling up toward her enemy, as the child creeps into the fire that burns its fingers."

All hands were soon in motion on board le Feu-Follet, the sweeps were on the point of being handled, when the jigger fluttered and the first puff of the expected western breeze swept along the surface of the waters. To the seamen it was like inhaling oxygen gas. Every appearance of drowsiness deserted the people of both vessels, and every one was instantly busy in making sail. Raoul had a proof into what dangerous proximity to the frigate he had got by the sound of the calls on board her, and the stillness of the sea was yet so great that the creaking of her fore-yard was actually audible to him as the English rounded in their braces briskly while laying their foretopsail aback.

At that moment a second respiration of the atmosphere gave birth to the breeze. Raoul whistled for the wind, and the lugger moved ahead, gliding toward the frigate. But in half a minute she had gathered sufficient way, her helm was put down, and she came round as easily and as gracefully as the bird turns on his wing. Not so with the heavier frigate. She had hauled in her starboard head-braces and had to get the foretopsail aback, and to pay well off with her head to leeward, in order to swing her yards and fill her sails, while le Feu-Follet was slipping through the water, going seemingly into the wind's eye. By this single evolution the lugger gained more than a cable's length on her enemy, and five minutes more would have put her beyond all immediate danger. But Captain Cuffe knew this as well as his competitor, and had made his preparations accordingly. Keeping his head-yards aback, he knocked his ship round off, until her broadside bore on the lugger, when he let fly every gun of his starboard batteries, the utmost care having been taken to make the shot tell. Twenty-two heavy round-shot coming in at once upon a little craft like le Feu-Follet was a fearful visitation, and the "boldest held their breath for a time" as the iron whirlwind whistled past them. Fortunately the lugger was not hulled; but a grave amount of mischief was done aloft. The jigger-mast was cut in two and flew upward like a pipe-stem. A serious wound was given to the mainmast below the hounds, and the yard itself was shivered in the slings. No less than six shot plunged through both lugs, leaving holes in the canvas that made it resemble a beggar's shirt, and the jib-stay was cut in two half-way between the mast-head and the end of the bowsprit. No one was hurt, and yet for a moment every one looked as if destruction had suddenly lighted on the lugger. Then it was that Raoul came out in his true colors. He knew he could not spare a stitch of canvas just at that moment, but that on the next ten minutes depended everything. Nothing was taken in, therefore, to secure spars and sails, but all was left to stand, trusting to the lightness of the breeze, which usually commenced very moderately. Hands were immediately set to work to get up a new stay; a new main-yard and sail were got along, and everything was prepared for hoisting both as soon as it could be ascertained that the mast would bear them. Nearly similar preparations were made forward as the shortest way of getting rid of the torn foresail; for that it was the intention to unbend and bend, the yard being sound.

Luckily, Captain Cuffe determined to lose no more time with his guns, but swinging his head-yards, the frigate came sweeping up to the wind, and in three minutes everything was trimmed for the utmost. All this time le Feu-Follet had not stood still. Her canvas fluttered, but it held on, and even the spars kept their places, though so much injured. In a word, the wind was not yet strong enough to tear the one or to carry away the other. It was an advantage, too, that these casualties, particularly the loss of her jigger, rendered le Feu-Follet less weatherly than she would otherwise have been, since, by keeping the frigate directly in her wake, she was less exposed to the chase-guns than she would have been a little on either bow. Of this truth Raoul was soon persuaded, the Proserpine beginning to work both her bow-guns, as soon as she came to the wind, though neither exactly bore; the shot of one ranging a little to windward and the other about as much on the other side. By these shot, too, the young Frenchman soon had the satisfaction of seeing that, notwithstanding her injuries, the lugger was drawing ahead—a fact of which the English became so sensible themselves that they soon ceased firing.

So far things went better than Raoul had reason at first to hope, though he well knew that the crisis was yet to come. The westerly wind often blew fresh at that period of the day, and should it now increase he would require all his canvas to get clear of a ship with the known qualities of the vessel in chase. How much longer his mast or his mainyard would stand he did not know, but as he was fast gaining he determined to make hay while the sun shone, and get far enough ahead, if possible, before the breeze grew fresh, to enable him to shift his sails and fish his spars without being again brought within the reach of visitors as rude as those who had so lately come hurtling into his thin hamper. The proper precautions were not neglected in the mean time. Men were sent aloft to do what they could, under the circumstances, with the two spars, and the strain was a little relieved by keeping the lugger as much away as might be done without enabling the frigate to set her studding-sails.

There is always something so exciting in a chase that seamen never fail to wish for more wind, forgetful that the power which increases their own speed may also increase the speed of the other party, and that, too, in an undue proportion. It would have been more favorable to le Feu-Follet to have had less wind than even now blew, since her relative rate of sailing was greater in light than in strong breezes. Raoul knew, from Ithuel's statements, that the Proserpine was an exceedingly fast ship, more especially when it blew fresh; and yet it did not appear to him that his lugger got along with sufficient speed, though his enemy would be certain to follow at a rate of sailing in a just proportion to his own, did there come more wind.

The wish of the young privateersman, however, was soon gratified. The wind freshened materially, and by the time the two vessels opened the Canal of Corsica, as the passage between that island and Elba is called, the frigate was obliged to take in her royals and two or three of those light and lofty staysails which it was then the custom for ships to carry. At first Raoul had thought he might fetch into Bastia, which lies due west of the southern end of Elba; but, though the wind drew a little down through the canal, it soon blew too fresh to allow any formation of the land materially to alter its current. The zephyr, as the afternoon's summer breeze of southern Italy, in particular, was termed by the ancients, is seldom a due west wind, there generally being a little northing in it, as seamen say; and as one gets further up the coast this same wind ordinarily comes round the head of Corsica, blowing from nearly west-northwest. This would have enabled the lugger to lay her course for a deep bay on which lies the town of Biguglia, could she have been jammed up on a wind, as might usually have been done; but a few minutes of experiment convinced Raoul that he must be more tender on his wounded spars and keep off for the mouth of the Golo. This was a river of some size into which it was possible for a vessel of a light draught to enter; and, as there stood a small battery near the anchorage, he determined to seek shelter in that haven in order to repair his damages. His calculations were made accordingly, and, taking the snow-clad peaks in the neighborhood of Corte as his landmarks, he ordered the lugger to be steered in the proper direction.

On board the Proserpine, there was scarcely less interest felt in the result than on board le Feu-Follet. If the people of the frigate had nothing to apprehend, they had something to revenge; in addition to the anticipated credit of having captured the boldest privateer that sailed out of France. For a short time, as the ship came up with the west end of Elba, it was a serious question whether she would be able to weather it, the lugger having gone past, within a cable's length of the cliffs, on the very verge of the breakers and much closer in than the frigate would dare to follow. But the last had taken the breeze further off the land than the first, and might possibly fetch past the promontory on the tack she was then steering. To have gone about would have been to have abandoned the chase, as it would have carried the ship off due north, while le Feu-Follet was gliding down to the southward and westward at the rate of seven knots. The distance across the canal is only about thirty miles, and there would not have been time to recover the lost ground.

This uncertainty made a most feverish moment on board the Proserpine, as she came up fast toward the headland. All depended on getting by without tacking. The appearances were favorable for deep water close in; but there is always the danger of rocks to be dreaded near mountainous coasts. The promontory, too, was comparatively low; and this was rather an indication that it ought not to be approached too closely. Winchester was in his berth, just beginning to feel the smart of his wound; but Griffin was at the captain's elbow, both he and the third lieutenant entering keenly into all their commander's wishes and anxieties.

"There she goes, into the very breakers!" exclaimed Cuffe, as they watched le Feu-Follet in her attempt to pass the promontory; "Monsieur Yvard must be determined to cast away his craft rather than be taken. It will be touch and go with him."

"I think not, Captain Cuffe," answered Griffin; "the coast is bold hereabouts, and even the Proserpine would find sufficient water there, where the lugger now is, I hope we shall not be obliged to tack, sir."

"Aye, this is very well for an irresponsible—but, when it got to a court, and punishment, I fear that all the last would fall on my shoulders, should his Majesty's ship happen to lay her bones along-shore here. No, no, Griffin; we must go a clear cable's length to windward of that, or I go about, though Raoul Yvard were never taken."

"There, he fetches up, by George!" cried Yelverton, the youngest lieutenant; and for a moment it was in truth believed in the frigate that le Feu-Follet, as a breaker actually curled directly under her lee, was aground. But this notion lasted a moment only, the little lugger continuing her course as swiftly as before; and a minute or two later keeping a little away to ease her spars, having been jammed up as close as possible previously, in order to weather the extreme end of what was thought to be the dangerous point. The frigate was fully two miles astern; and, instead of losing anything of her vantage-ground, she was kept so near the wind as to be occasionally touching. This was the more safe, inasmuch as the sea was perfectly smooth, and the vessel made no lee-way. Still the frigate looked, as it is termed, barely up to the point it was deemed indispensable to weather; and as ships rarely "do" better than they "look," it became a question of serious doubt on board the Proserpine, as she came up with the headland, whether she could clear it.

"I am afraid, Captain Cuffe, we shall never clear it with a good-enough berth, sir," observed the fidgeting Griffin; "it seems to me the ship sets unaccountably to leeward to-day!"

"She never behaved better, Griffin. I am really in hopes there is a slight current off-shore here; if anything, we actually open the highlands of Corsica by this promontory. You see that the wreck of la Divina Providenza is sweeping round the bay and is coming out to windward again."

"That may serve us, indeed! All ready in the chains, sir!—shall we make a cast of the lead?"

Cuffe assented, and the lead was hove. At this moment the ship was going eight knots, and the man reported no bottom, with fifteen fathoms of line out. This was well, and two or three subsequent casts confirmed it. Orders were now given to drag every bowline, swig-off on every brace, and flatten-in all the sheets. Even the halyards were touched in order that the sails might stand like boards. The trying moment was near; five minutes must decide the matter.

"Let her shake a little, Mr. Yelverton, and eat into the wind," said Cuffe, addressing the officer of the watch; "we must do all we can here; for when abreast of the breakers everything must be a rap-full to keep the ship under quick command. There—meet her with the helm, and give her a good full."

This experiment was repeated twice, and each time the frigate gained her length to windward, though she necessarily lost more than three times that distance in her velocity. At length the trial came, and a profound silence, one in which nervousness and anxiety were blended with hope, reigned in the vessel. The eyes of all turned from the sails to the breakers; from the breakers to the sails; and from both to the wake of the ship.

At such moments the voice of the lead's-man prevails over all other sounds. His warning cry is listened to with breathless attention when the songs of a siren would be unheard. Cast after cast was made as the ship drove on, and the answer to Cuffe's questions was uniformly, "No bottom, sir, with fifteen fathoms out"; but just at this instant arose the regular song from the weather main-chains of "by the mark seven!" This came so suddenly on the captain's ear that he sprang upon the taffrail, where he could command a full view of all he wanted to see, and then he called out in a stentorian voice:

"Heave again, sir!—be brisk, my lad!—be brisk!"

"Be-e-e-ther-r-r-dee-e-e-eep six!" followed almost as soon as the Captain's voice had ceased.

"Ready-about," shouted Cuffe. "See all clear, gentlemen. Move lively, men; more lively."

"And-a-a-eh half-ef-four—"

"Stand by!—What the devil are you at, sir, on that forecastle?—Are you ready, forward?"

"All ready, sir—"

"Down with your helm—hard down at once—"

"Be-e-e-ther-r-r-dee-e-e-p nine—"

"Meet her!—up with your helm. Haul down your sheets forward—brail the spanker—let go all the bowlines aft. So—well, there, well. She flew round like a top; but, by Jove, we've caught her, gentlemen. Drag your bowlines again. What's the news from the chains?"

"No bottom, sir, with fifteen fathoms out—and as good a cast, too, sir, as we've had to-day."

"So—you're rap full—don't fall off—very well dyce" (Anglice, thus)—"keep her as you are. Well, by the Lord, Griffin, that was a shave; half-four was getting to be squally in a quarter of the world where a rock makes nothing of pouting its lips fifteen or twenty feet at a time at a mariner. We are past it all, however, and here is the land, trending away to the southward like a man in a consumption, fairly under our lee. A dozen Raoul Yvards wouldn't lead me into such a d—d scrape again!"

"The danger that is over is no longer a danger at all, sir," answered Griffin, laughing. "Don't you think, Captain Cuffe, we might ease her about half a point? that would be just her play; and the lugger keeps off a little, I rather suspect, to ease her mainmast. I'm certain I saw chips fly from it when we dosed her with those two-and-twenty pills."

"Perhaps you're right, Griffin. Ease her with the helm a little, Mr. Yelverton. If Master Yvard stands on his present course an hour longer, Biguglia would be too far to windward for him; and as for Bastia, that has been out of the question from the first. There is a river called Golo, into which he might run; and that, I rather think, is his aim. Four hours, however, will let us into his secret."

And four intensely interesting hours were those which succeeded. The wind was a cap-full; a good, fresh, westerly breeze, which seemed to have started out of the oven-like heat of a week of intensely hot weather that had preceded it, and to have collected the force of two or three zephyrs into one. It was not a gale at all, nor did it induce either party to think of reefing; no trifle would have done that, under the circumstances; but it caused the Proserpine to furl her fore and mizzentopgallant-sails, and put Raoul in better humor with the loss of his jigger. When fairly round the headland, and at a moment when he fancied the frigate would be compelled to tack, the latter had seized an opportunity to get in his foresail, to unbend it, and to bend and set a new one; an operation that took just four minutes by the watch. He would have tried the same experiment with the other lug, but the mast was scarce worth the risk, and he thought the holes might act as reefs, and thus diminish the strain. In these four hours, owing to the disadvantage under which le Feu-Follet labored, there was not a difference of half a knot in the distance run by the two vessels, though each passed over more than thirty miles of water. During this time they had been drawing rapidly nearer to the coast of Corsica, the mountains of which, ragged and crowned with nearly eternal snows, had been glittering in the afternoon's sun before them, though they lay many a long league inland. But the formation of the coast itself had now become plain, and Raoul, an hour before the sun disappeared, noted his landmarks, by which to make for the river he intended to enter. The eastern coast of Corsica is as deficient in bays and harbors as its western is affluent with them; and this Golo, for which the lugger was shaping her course, would never have been thought of as a place of shelter under ordinary circumstances. But Raoul had once anchored in its mouth, and he deemed it the very spot in which to elude his enemy. It had shoals off its embouchure; and these, he rightly enough fancied, would induce Captain Cuffe to be wary.

As the evening approached the wind began to decrease in force, and then the people of the lugger lost all their apprehensions. The spars had all stood, and Raoul no longer hesitated about trusting his wounded mainmast with a new yard and sail. Both were got up, and the repairs were immediately commenced. The superiority of the lugger in sailing was now so great as to put it out of all question that she was not to be overtaken in the chase; and Raoul at one time actually thought of turning up along the land and going into Bastia, where he might even provide himself with a new mainmast at need. But this idea, on reflection, he abandoned as too hazardous; and he continued on in the direction of the mouth of the Golo.

Throughout the day the Proserpine had shown no colors, except for the short period when her boats were engaged, and while she herself was firing at the lugger. The same was the fact with le Feu-Follet, though Raoul had run up the tri-color as he opened on the felucca, and he kept it flying as long as there was any appearance of hostilities. As the two vessels drew in near to the land several coasters were seen beating up against the westerly wind, or running down before it, all of which, however, seemed so much to distrust the appearance of the lugger as to avoid her as far as was possible. This was a matter of indifference to our hero, who knew that they were all probably countrymen; or, at least, smugglers, who would scarcely reward him for the trouble, had he time to bring them to and capture them. Corsica was then again in the hands of the French, the temporary and imperfect possession of the English having terminated three or four years earlier; and Raoul felt certain of a welcome anywhere in the island and of protection wherever it could be offered. Such was the state of things when, just as the lugger was preparing to enter among the shoals, the Proserpine unexpectedly tacked and seemed to bestow all her attention on the coasters, of which three or four were so near that two fell into her hands almost without an effort to escape.

It appeared to Raoul and those with him in his little craft that the English seized these insignificant vessels solely with a wish for vengeance, since it was not usual for ships of the force of the Proserpine to turn aside to molest the poor fishermen and coasters. A few execrations followed, quite as a matter of course, but the intricacy of the channel and the necessity of having all his eyes about him soon drove every other thought from the mind of the dashing privateersman but such as were connected with the care and safety of his own vessel.

Just as the sun set le Feu-Follet anchored. She had chosen a berth sufficiently within the shallow water to be safe from the guns of the frigate, though scarcely within the river. The latter the depth of the stream hardly permitted, though there was all the shelter that the season and weather required. The Proserpine manifested no intention to give up her pursuit; for she, too, came off the outlet and brought up with one of her bowers about two miles to seaward of the lugger. She seemed to have changed her mind as to the coasters, having let both proceed after a short detention, though, it falling calm, neither was enabled to get any material distance from her until the land-breeze should rise. In these positions the belligerents prepared to pass the night, each party taking the customary precautions as to his ground tackle, and each clearing up the decks and going through the common routine of duty as regularly as if he lay in a friendly port.



CHAPTER XI.

"The human mind, that lofty thing, The palace and the throne, Where reason sits, a sceptred king, And breathes his judgment tone; Oh! I who with silent step shall trace The borders of that haunted place, Nor in his weakness own, That mystery and marvel bind That lofty thing—the human mind!"

ANONYMOUS.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the glories of the Mediterranean. They are familiar to every traveler, and books have again and again laid them before the imaginations of readers of all countries and ages. Still, there are lights and shades peculiar to every picture, and this of ours has some of its own that merit a passing notice. A sunset, in midsummer, can add to the graces of almost any scene. Such was the hour when Raoul anchored; and Ghita, who had come on deck, now that the chase was over and the danger was thought to be past, fancied she had never seen her own Italy or the blue Mediterranean more lovely.

The shadows of the mountains were cast far upon the sea, long ere the sun had actually gone down, throwing the witchery of eventide over the whole of the eastern coast, some time before it came to grace its western. Corsica and Sardinia resemble vast fragments of the Alps, which have fallen into the sea by some accident of nature, where they stand in sight of their native beds, resembling, as it might be, outposts to those great walls of Europe. Their mountains have the same formations, the same white peaks, for no small portion of the year at least, and their sides the same mysterious and riven aspect. In addition, however, to their other charms, they have one that is wanting in most of Switzerland, though traces of it are to be found in Savoy and on the southern side of the Alps; they have that strange admixture of the soft and the severe, of the sublime and beautiful, that so peculiarly characterize the witchery of Italian nature. Such was now the aspect of all visible from the deck of le Feu-Follet. The sea, with its dark-blue tint, was losing every trace of the western wind, and was becoming glassy and tranquil; the mountains on the other side were solemn and grand, just showing their ragged outlines along a sky glowing with "the pomp that shuts the day"; while the nearer valleys and narrow plains were mysterious, yet soft, under the deep shadows they cast. Pianosa lay nearly opposite, distant some twenty miles, rising out of the water like a beacon; Elba was visible to the northeast, a gloomy confused pile of mountain at that hour; and Ghita once or twice thought she could trace on the coast of the main the dim outline of her own hill, Monte Argentaro; though the distance, some sixty or seventy miles, rendered this improbable. Outside, too, lay the frigate, riding on the glassy surface of the sea, her sails furled, her yards squared, everything about her cared for and in its place, until she formed a faultless picture of nautical symmetry and naval propriety. There are all sorts of men in a marine, as well as in civil life; these taking things as they come, content to perform their duties in the most quiet manner, while others again have some such liking for their vessels as the dandy has for his own person, and are never happy unless embellishing them. The truth in this, as in most other matters, lies in a medium; the officer who thinks too much of the appearance of his vessel, seldom having mind enough to be stow due attention on the great objects for which she was constructed and is sailed; while, on the other hand, he who is altogether indifferent to these appearances is usually thinking of things foreign to his duty and his profession; if, indeed, he thinks at all. Cuffe was near the just medium, Inclining a little too much, perhaps, to the naval dandy. The Proserpine, thanks to the builders of Toulon, was thought to be the handsomest model then afloat in the Mediterranean, and, like an established beauty, all who belonged to her were fond of decorating her and of showing her fine proportions to advantage. As she now lay at single anchor just out of gun-shot from his own berth, Raoul could not avoid gazing at her with envy, and a bitter feeling passed through his mind when he recalled the chances of fortune and of birth, which deprived him of the hope of ever rising to the command of such a frigate, but which doomed him, seemingly, to the fate of a privateersman for life.

Nature had intended Raoul Yvard for a much higher destiny than that which apparently awaited his career. He had come into active life with none of the advantages that accompany the accidents of birth, and at a moment in the history of his great nation when its morals and its religious sentiments had become unsettled by the violent reaction which was throwing off the abuses of centuries. They who imagine, however, that France, as a whole, was guilty of the gross excesses that disfigured her struggles for liberty know little of the great mass of moral feeling that endured through all the abominations of the times, and mistake the crimes of a few desperate leaders and the exaggerations of misguided impulses for a radical and universal depravity. The France of the Reign of Terror, even, has little more to answer for than the compliance which makes bodies of men the instruments of the enthusiastic, the designing, and the active—our own country often tolerating error that differs only in the degree, under the same blind submission to combinations and impulses; this very degree, to, depending more on the accidents of history and natural causes than any agencies which are to be imputed to the one party as a fault, or to the other as a merit. It was with Raoul as it had been with his country—each was the creature of circumstances; and if the man had some of the faults, he had also most of the merits of his nation and his age. The looseness on the subject of religion, which was his principal defect in the eyes of Ghita, but which could scarcely fail to be a material one with a girl educated and disposed as was the case with our heroine, was the error of the day, and with Raoul it was at least sincere; a circumstance that rendered him, with one so truly pious as the gentle being he loved, the subject of a holy interest, which, in itself, almost rivalled the natural tenderness of her sex, in behalf of the object of her affections.

While the short engagement with the boats lasted, and during the few minutes he was under the fire of the frigate, Raoul had been himself; the excitement of actual war always nerving him to deeds worthy of his command and the high name he had acquired; but throughout the remainder of the day he had felt little disposed to strife. The chase, once assured that his spars were likely to stand, gave him little concern; and now that he was at anchor within the shallow water, he felt much as the traveler who has found a comfortable inn after the fatigue of a hard day's ride. When Ithuel suggested the possibility of a night-attack in boats, he laughingly reminded the American that "the burnt child dreads the fire," and gave himself no great concern in the matter. Still no proper precaution was neglected. Raoul was in the habit of exacting much of his men in moments of necessity; but at all other times he was as indulgent as a kind father among obedient and respectful children. This quality and the never-varying constancy and coolness that he displayed in danger was the secret of his great influence with them; every seaman under his orders feeling certain that no severe duty was required at his hands without a corresponding necessity for it.

On the present occasion, when the people of le Feu-Follet had supped, they were indulged in their customary dance, and the romantic songs of Provence were heard on the forecastle. A light-hearted gayety prevailed, that wanted only the presence of woman to make the scene resemble the evening amusement of some hamlet on the coast. Nor was the sex absent in the sentiment of the hour or wholly so in person. The songs were full of chivalrous gallantry, and Ghita listened, equally touched and amused. She sat on the taffrail, with her uncle standing at her side, while Raoul paced the quarter-deck, stopping, in his turn, to utter some thought or wish, to ears that were always attentive. At length the song and the dance ended, and all but the few who were ordered to remain on watch descended to their hammocks. The change was as sudden as it was striking. The solemn, breathing stillness of a star-lit night succeeded to the light laugh, melodious song, and spirited merriment of a set of men whose constitutional gayety seemed to be restrained by a species of native refinement that is unknown to the mariners of other regions, and who, unnurtured as they might be deemed, in some respects, seldom or never offended against the proprieties, as is so common with the mariners of the boasted Anglo-Saxon race. By this time the cool air from the mountains began to descend, and, floating over the heated sea, it formed a light land-breeze that blew in an exactly contrary direction to that which, about the same hour, came off from the adjacent continent. There was no moon, but the night could not be called dark. Myriads of stars gleamed out from the fathomless firmament, filling the atmosphere with a light that served to render objects sufficiently distinct, while it left them clad in a semi-obscurity that suited the witchery of the scene and the hour. Raoul felt the influence of all these circumstances in an unusual degree. It disposed him to more sobriety of thought than always attended his leisure moments, and he took a seat on the taffrail near Ghita, while her uncle went below to his knees and his prayers.

Every footfall in the lugger had now ceased. Ithuel was posted on a knight-head, where he sat watching his old enemy, the Proserpine; the proximity of that ship not allowing him to sleep. Two experienced seamen, who alone formed the regular anchor-watch, as it is termed, were stationed apart, in order to prevent conversation; one on the starboard cathead, and the other in the main rigging; both keeping vigilant ward over the tranquil sea and the different objects that floated on its placid bosom. In that retired spot these objects were necessarily few, embracing the frigate, the lugger, and three coasters, the latter of which had all been boarded before the night set in, by the Proserpine, and after short detentions dismissed. One of these coasters lay about half-way between the two hostile vessels, at anchor, having come-to, after making some fruitless efforts to get to the northward, by means of the expiring west wind. Although the light land-breeze would now have sufficed to carry her a knot or two through the water, she preferred maintaining her position and giving her people a good night's rest to getting under way. The situation of this felucca and the circumstance that she had been boarded by the frigate rendered her an object of some distrust with Raoul through the early part of the evening, and he had ordered a vigilant eye to be kept on her; but nothing had been discovered to confirm these suspicions. The movements of her people—the manner in which she brought-up—the quiet that prevailed on board her, and even the lubberly disposition of her spars and rigging, went to satisfy Raoul that she had no man-of-war's men on board her. Still, as she lay less than a mile outside of the lugger though now dead to leeward all that distance, she was to be watched; and one of the seamen, he in the rigging, rarely had his eyes off her a minute at a time. The second coaster was a little to the southward of the frigate, under her canvas, hauling in for the land; doubtless with a view to get as much as possible of the breeze from the mountains, and standing slowly to the south. She had been set by compass an hour before, and all that time had altered her bearings but half a point, though not a league off—a proof how light she had the wind. The third coaster, a small felucca, too, was to the northward; but ever since the land-breeze, if breeze it could be called, had come she had been busy turning slowly up to windward, and seemed disposed either to cross the shoals closer in than the spot where the lugger lay or to enter the Golo. Her shadowy outline was visible, though drawn against the land, moving slowly athwart the lugger's hawse, perhaps half a mile in-shore of her. As there was a current setting out of the river, and all the vessels rode with their heads to the island, Ithuel occasionally turned his head to watch her progress, which was so slow, however, as to produce very little change.

After looking around him several minutes in silence Raoul turned his face upward, and gazed at the stars.

"You probably do not know, Ghita," he said, "the use those stars may be, and are, to us mariners. By their aid, we are enabled to tell where we are, in the midst of the broadest oceans—to know the points of the compass, and to feel at home even when furthest removed from it. The seaman must go far south of the equator, at least, ere he can reach a spot where he does not see the same stars that he beheld from the door of his father's house."

"That is a new thought to me," answered Ghita, quickly, her tender nature at once struck with the feeling and poetry of such an idea; "that is a new thought to me, Raoul, and I wonder you never mentioned it before. It is a great thing to be able to carry home and familiar objects with you when so distant from those you love."

"Did you never hear that lovers have chosen an hour and a star, by gazing at which they might commune together, though separated by oceans and countries."

"That is a question you might put to yourself, Raoul; all I have ever heard of lovers and love having come from your own lips."

"Well, then, I tell it you, and hope that we shall not part again without selecting our star and our hour—if, indeed, we ever part more. Though I have forgotten to tell you this, Ghita, it is because you are never absent from my thoughts—no star is necessary to recall Monte Argentaro and the Towers."

If we should say Ghita was not pleased with this, it would be to raise her above an amiable and a natural weakness. Raoul's protestations never fell dead on her heart, and few things were sweeter to her ear than his words as they declared his devotedness and passion. The frankness with which he admitted his delinquencies, and most especially the want of that very religious sentiment which was of so much value in the eyes of his mistress, gave an additional weight to his language when he affirmed his love. Notwithstanding Ghita blushed as she now listened, she did not smile; she rather appeared sad. For near a minute she made no reply; and when she did answer, it was in a low voice, like one who felt and thought intensely.

"Those stars may well have a higher office," she said. "Look at them, Raoul;—count them we cannot, for they seem to start out of the depths of heaven, one after another, as the eye rests upon the space, until they mock our efforts at calculation. We see they are there in thousands, and may well believe they are in myriads. Now thou hast been taught, else couldst thou never be a navigator, that those stars are worlds like our own, or suns with worlds sailing around them; how is it possible to see and know this without believing in a God and feeling the insignificance of our being?"

"I do not deny that there is a power to govern all this, Ghita—but I maintain that it is a principle; not a being, in our shape and form; and that it is the reason of things, rather than a deity."

"Who has said that God is a being in our shape and form, Raoul? None know that—- none can know it; none say it who reverence and worship him as they ought!"

"Do not your priests say that man has been created in his image? and is not this creating him in his form and likeness?"

"Nay, not so, dear Raoul, but in the image of his spirit—that man hath a soul which partakes, though in a small degree, of the imperishable essence of God; and thus far doth he exist in his image. More than this, none have presumed to say. But what a being, to be the master of all those bright worlds!"

"Ghita, thou know'st my way of thinking on these matters, and thou also know'st that I would not wound thy gentle spirit by a single word that could grieve thee."

"Nay, Raoul, it is not thy way of thinking, but thy fashion of talking, that makes the difference between us. No one who thinks can ever doubt the existence of a being superior to all of earth and of the universe; and who is Creator and Master of all."

"Of a principle, if thou wilt, Ghita; but of a being, I ask for the proof. That a mighty principle exists, to set all these planets in motion—to create all these stars, and to plant all these suns in space, I never doubted; it would be to question a fact which stands day and night before my eyes; but to suppose a being capable of producing all these things is to believe in beings I never saw."

"And why not as well suppose that it is a being that does all this, Raoul, as suppose it what you call a principle?"