"Because I see principles beyond my understanding at work all around me: in yonder heavy frigate, groaning under her load of artillery, which floats on this thin water; in the trees of the land that lies so near us; in the animals, which are born and die; the fishes, the birds, and the human beings. But I see no being—know no being, that is able to do all this."

"That is because thou know'st not God! He is the creator of the principles of which thou speak'st, and is greater than thy principles themselves."

"It is easy to say this, Ghita—but hard to prove. I take the acorn and put it in the ground; in due time it comes up a plant; in the course of years, it becomes a tree. Now, all this depends on a certain mysterious principle, which is unknown to me, but which I am sure exists, for I can cause it myself to produce its fruits, by merely opening the earth and laying the seed in its bosom. Nay, I can do more—so well do I understand this principle, to a certain extent at least, that, by choosing the season and the soil, I can hasten or retard the growth of the plant, and, in a manner, fashion the tree."

"True, Raoul, to a certain extent thou canst; and it is precisely because thou hast been created after the image of God. The little resemblance thou enjoyest to that mighty Being enables thee to do this much more than the beasts of the field: wert thou his equal, thou couldst create that principle of which thou speakest, and which, in thy blindness, thou mistakest for his master."

This was said with more feeling than Ghita had ever before manifested, in their frequent discourses on this subject, and with a solemnity of tone that startled her listener. Ghita had no philosophy, in the common acceptation of the term, while Raoul fancied he had much, under the limitations of a deficient education; and yet the strong religious sentiment of the girl so quickened her faculties that he had often been made to wonder why she had seemingly the best of the argument, on a subject in which he flattered himself with being so strong.

"I rather think, Ghita, we scarcely understand each other," answered Raoul. "I pretend not to see any more than is permitted to man; or, rather, more than his powers can comprehend; but this proves nothing, as the elephant understands more than the horse, and the horse more than the fish. There is a principle which pervades everything which we call Nature; and this it is which has produced these whirling worlds and all the mysteries of creation. One of its laws is, that nothing it produces shall comprehend its secrets."

"You have only to fancy your principle a spirit, a being with mind, Raoul, to have the Christian's God. Why not believe in him as easily as you believe in your unknown principle, as you call it? You know that you exist—that you can build a lugger—can reason on the sun and stars, so as to find your way across the widest ocean, by means of your mind; and why not suppose that some superior being exists who can do even more than this? Your principles can be thwarted even by yourself—the seed can be deprived of its power to grow—the tree destroyed; and, if principles can thus be destroyed, some accident may one day destroy creation by destroying its principle. I fear to speak to you of revelation, Raoul, for I know you mock it!"

"Not when it comes from thy lips, dearest. I may not believe, but I never mock at what thou utterest and reverencest."

"I could thank thee for this, Raoul, but I feel it would be taking to myself a homage that ought to be paid elsewhere. But here is my guitar, and I am sorry to say that the hymn to the Virgin has not been sung on board this lugger to-night; thou canst not think how sweet is a hymn sung upon the waters. I heard the crew that is anchored toward the frigate, singing that hymn, while thy men were at their light Provencal songs in praise of woman's beauty, instead of joining in praise of their Creator."

"Thou mean'st to sing thy hymn, Ghita, else the guitar would not have been mentioned?"

"Raoul, I do. I have ever found thy soul the softest after holy music. Who knows but the mercy of God may one day touch it through the notes of this very hymn!"

Ghita paused a moment, and then her light fingers passed over the strings of her guitar in a solemn symphony; after which came the sweet strains of "Ave Maria," in a voice and melody that might, in sooth, have touched a heart of stone. Ghita, a Neapolitan by birth, had all her country's love for music; and she had caught some of the science that seems to pervade nations in that part of the world. Nature had endowed her with one of the most touching voices of her sex; one less powerful than mellow and sweet; and she never used it in a religious office without its becoming tremulous and eloquent with feeling. While she was now singing this well-known hymn, a holy hope pervaded her moral system, that, in some miraculous manner, she might become the agent of turning Raoul to the love and worship of God; and the feeling communicated itself to her execution. Never before had she sung so well; as a proof of which Ithuel left his knight-head and came aft to listen, while the two French mariners on watch temporarily forgot their duty, in entranced attention.

"If anything could make me a believer, Ghita," murmured Raoul, when the last strain had died on the lips of his beloved, "it would be to listen to thy melody! What now, Monsieur Etooell! are you, too, a lover of holy music?"

"This is rare singing, Captain Rule; but we have different business on hand. If you will step to the other end of the lugger, you can take a look at the craft that has been crawling along, in-shore of us, for the last three hours—there is something about her that is unnat'ral; she seems to be dropping down nearer to us, while she has no motion through the water. The last circumstance I hold to be unnat'ral with a vessel that has all sail set and in this breeze."

Raoul pressed the hand of Ghita, and whispered her to go below, as he was fearful the air of the night might injure her. He then went forward, where he could command as good a view of the felucca in-shore, as the obscurity of the hour permitted; and he felt a little uneasiness, when he found how near she had got to the lugger. When he last noted her position, this vessel was quite half a mile distant, and appeared to be crossing the bows of le Feu-Follet, with sufficient wind to have carried her a mile ahead in the interval; yet could he not perceive that she had advanced as far, in that direction, as she had drifted down upon the lugger the while.

"Have you been examining her long?" he demanded of the New Hampshire man.

"Ever since she has seemed to stand still; which is now some twenty minutes. She is dull, I suppose, for she has been several hours getting along a league; and there is now air enough for such a craft to go three knots to the hour. Her coming down upon us is easily accounted for, there being a considerable current out of this river, as you may see by the ripple at our own cut-water; but I find nothing to keep her from going ahead at the same time. I set her by the light you see, here, in the wake of the nearest mountain, at least a quarter of an hour since, and she has not advanced five times her own length since."

"'Tis nothing but a Corsican coaster, after all, Etooell: I hardly think the English would risk our canister again, for the pleasure of being beaten off in another attempt to board!"

"They're a spiteful set, aboard the frigate; and the Lord only knows! See, here is a good heavy night air, and that felucca is not a cable's length from us; set her by the jib-stay, and judge for yourself how slowly she goes ahead! That it is which nonplusses me!"

Raoul did as the other desired, and after a short trial he found that the coaster had no perceptible motion ahead, while it was certain she was drifting down with the current directly athwart the lugger's hawse. This satisfied him that she must have drags astern; a circumstance that at once denoted a hostile intention. The enemy was probably on board the felucca, in force; and it was incumbent on him to make immediate preparations for defence.

Still, Raoul was reluctant to disturb his people. Like all firm and cool men, he was averse to the parade of a false alarm; and it seemed so improbable that the lesson of the morning was so soon forgotten, that he could hardly persuade himself to believe his senses. Then the men had been very hard at work throughout the day; and most of them were sleeping the sleep of the weary. On the other hand, every minute brought the coaster nearer, and increased the danger, should the enemy be really in possession of her. Under all the circumstances, he determined, first, to hail; knowing that his crew could be got up in a minute, and that they slept with arms at their sides, under an apprehension that a boat attack might possibly be attempted in the course of the night.

"Felucca, ahoy!" called out the captain of le Feu-Follet, the other craft being too near to render any great effort of the voice necessary; "what felucca is that? and why have you so great a drift?"

"La Bella Corsienne!" was the answer, in a patois, half French, half Italian, as Raoul expected, if all were right. "We are bound into la Padulella, and wish to keep in with the land to hold the breeze the longer. We are no great sailer at the best, and have a drift, because we are just now in the strength of the current.

"At this rate, you will come athwart my hawse. You know I am armed, and cannot suffer that!"

"Ah, Signore, we are friends of the republic, and would not harm you if we could. We hope you will not injure poor mariners like us. We will keep away, if you please, and pass under your stern—"

This proposition was made so suddenly and so unexpectedly that Raoul had not time to object; and had he been disposed to do so, the execution was too prompt to allow him the means. The felucca fell broad off, and came down almost in a direct line for the lugger's bows before the wind and current, moving fast enough now to satisfy all Ithuel's scruples.

"Call all hands to repel boarders!" cried Raoul, springing aft to the capstan and seizing his own arms—"Come up lively, mes enfans!—here is treachery!"

These words were hardly uttered before Raoul was back on the heel of the bowsprit, and the most active of his men—some five or six at most—began to show themselves on deck. In that brief space, the felucca had got within eighty yards, when, to the surprise of all in the lugger, she luffed into the wind again and drifted down, until it was apparent that she was foul of the lugger's cable, her stern swinging round directly on the latter's starboard bow. At that instant, or just as the two vessels came in actual contact, and Raoul's men were thronging around him to meet the expected attack, the sound of oars, pulled for life or death, were heard, and flames burst upward from the open hatch of the coaster. Then a boat was dimly seen gliding away in a line with the hull, by the glowing light.

"Un brulot!—un brulot!—a fire-ship!" exclaimed twenty voices together, the horror that mingled in the cries proclaiming the extent of a danger which is, perhaps, the most terrific that seamen can encounter.

But the voice of Raoul Yvard was not among them. The moment his eye caught the first glimpse of the flames he disappeared from the bowsprit. He might have been absent about twenty seconds. Then he was seen on the taffrail of the felucca, with a spare shank-painter, which had been lying on the forecastle, on his shoulder.

"Antoine!—Francois!—Gregoire!"—he called out, in a voice of thunder—"follow me!—the rest clear away the cable and bend a hawser to the better end!"

The people of le Feu-Follet were trained to order and implicit obedience. By this time, too, the lieutenants were among them; and the men set about doing as they had been directed. Raoul himself passed into the felucca, followed by the three men he had selected by name. The adventurers had no difficulty, as yet, in escaping the flames, though by this time they were pouring upward from the hatch in a torrent. As Raoul suspected, his cable had been grappled; and, seizing the rope, he tightened it to a severe strain, securing the in-board part. Then he passed down to the cable himself, directing his companions to hand him the rope-end of the shank-painter, which he fastened to the cable by a jamming hitch. This took half a minute; in half a minute more he was on the felucca's forecastle again. Here the chain was easily passed through a hawse-hole, and a knot tied, with a marlinspike passed through its centre. To pass the fire on the return was now a serious matter; but it was done without injury, Raoul driving his companions before him. No sooner did his foot reach the bows of le Feu-Follet again than he shouted:

"Veer away!—pay out cable, men, if you would save our beautiful lugger from destruction!"

Nor was there a moment to spare. The lugger took the cable that was given her fast enough under the pressure of the current and helped by the breeze; but at first the fire-vessel, already a sheet of flame, her decks having been saturated with tar, seemed disposed to accompany her. To the delight of all in the lugger, however, the stern of the felucca was presently seen to separate from their own bows; and a sheer having been given to le Feu-Follet, by means of the helm, in a few seconds even her bowsprit and jib had cleared the danger. The felucca rode stationary, while the lugger dropped astern fathom after fathom until she lay more than a hundred yards distant from the fiery mass. As a matter of course, while the cable was paid out, the portion to which the lanyard or rope part of the shank-painter was fastened dropped into the water, while the felucca rode by the chain.

These events occupied less than five minutes; and all had been done with a steadiness and promptitude that seemed more like instinct than reason. Raoul's voice was not heard, except in the few orders mentioned; and when, by the glaring light which illuminated all in the lugger and the adjacent water to some distance, nearly to the brightness of noonday, he saw Ghita gazing at the spectacle in awed admiration and terror, he went to her, and spoke as if the whole were merely a brilliant spectacle, devised for their amusement.

"Our girandola is second only to that of St. Peter," he said, smiling. "'Twas a narrow escape, love; but, thanks to thy God, if thou wilt it shall be so, we have received no harm."

"And you have been the agent of his goodness, Raoul; I have witnessed all from this spot. The call to the men brought me on deck; and, oh! how I trembled as I saw you on the flaming mass!"

"It has been cunningly planned on the part of Messieurs les Anglais; but it has signally failed. That coaster has a cargo of tar and naval stores on board; and, capturing her this evening, they have thought to extinguish our lantern by the brighter and fiercer flame of their own. But le Feu-Follet will shine again when their fire is dead!"

"Is there, then, no danger that the brulot will yet come down upon us—she is fearfully near!"

"Not sufficiently so to do us harm; more especially as our sails are damp with dew. Here she cannot come so long as our cable stands; and as that is under water where she lies, it cannot burn. In half an hour there will be little of her left, and we will enjoy the bonfire while it lasts."

And, now the fear of danger was past, it was a sight truly to be enjoyed. Every anxious and curious face in the lugger was to be seen, under that brilliant light, turned toward the glowing mass as the sunflower follows the great source of heat in his track athwart the heavens; while the spars, sails, guns, and even the smallest object on board the lugger started out of the obscurity of night into the brightness of such an illumination, as if composing parts of some brilliant scenic display. But so fierce a flame soon exhausted itself. Ere long the felucca's masts fell, and with them a pyramid of fire. Then the glowing deck tumbled in; and, finally, timber after timber and plank after plank fell, until the conflagration, in a great measure, extinguished itself in the water on which it floated. An hour after the flames appeared little remained but the embers which were glowing in the hold of the wreck.



CHAPTER XII.

"A justice of the peace, for the time being, They bow to, but may turn him out next year; They reverence their priest, but, disagreeing In price or creed, dismiss him without fear; They have a natural talent for foreseeing And knowing all things;—and should Park appear From his long tour in Africa, to show The Niger's source, they'd meet him with—We know."

HALLECK.

Raoul was not mistaken as to the manner in which they were obtained and the means employed by his enemies. The frigate had found one of the feluccas loaded with naval stores, including some ten or fifteen barrels of tar; and it instantly struck Griffin, who was burning to revenge the defeat of the morning, that the prize might be converted into a fire-vessel. As the second lieutenant volunteered to carry her in, always a desperate service, Cuffe gave his consent. Nothing could have been better managed than the whole duty connected with this exploit, including the manner in which our hero saved his vessel from destruction. The frigate kept between her prize and the lugger, to conceal the fact that a boat remained on board the former, and when all was ready the felucca was apparently permitted to proceed on her voyage. The other two prizes were allowed to go free also, as cloaks to the whole affair. Griffin, as has been seen, kept standing in for the land; his object being to get up stream from the lugger and as near her as possible. When he found himself almost as far ahead as was desirable, drags were used to keep the craft stationary, and in this manner she drifted down on her intended victim, as has been already described. But for the sagacity and uneasiness of Ithuel the plan would altogether have escaped detection; and but for the coolness, courage, and resources of Raoul, it would infallibly have succeeded, notwithstanding the suspicions that had been excited.

Cuffe and the people on deck watched the whole affair with the deepest interest. They were barely able to see the sails of the felucca by means of a night-glass as she was dropping down on the lugger; and Yelverton had just exclaimed that the two vessels were foul of each other, when the flames broke out. As a matter of course, at that distance both craft seemed on fire; and when le Feu-Follet had dropped a hundred yards nearer to the frigate, leaving the felucca blazing, the two were so exactly in a line as to bring them together as seen from the former's decks. The English expected every moment to hear the explosion of the lugger's magazine; but, as it did not happen, they came to the conclusion it had been drowned. As for Griffin, he pulled in-shore, both to avoid the fire of le Feu-Follet, in passing her broadside, and in the hope of intercepting Raoul while endeavoring to escape in a boat. He even went to a landing in the river quite a league from the anchorage, and waited there until long past midnight, when, finding the night beginning to cloud over and the obscurity to increase, he returned to the frigate, giving the smouldering wreck a wide berth for fear of accidents.

Such, then, was the state of things when Captain Cuffe appeared on deck just as the day began to dawn on the following morning. He had given orders to be called at that hour, and was now all impatience to get a view of the sea, more particularly in-shore. At length the curtain began slowly to rise, and his view extended further and further toward the river, until all was visible, even to the very land. Not a craft of any sort was in sight. Even the wreck had disappeared, though this was subsequently discovered in the surf, having drifted out with the current until it struck an eddy, which carried it in again, when it was finally stranded. No vestige of le Feu-Follet, however, was to be seen. Not even a tent on the shore, a wandering boat, a drifting spar, or a rag of a sail! All had disappeared, no doubt, in the conflagration. As Cuffe went below he walked with a more erect mien than he had done since the affair of the previous morning; and as he opened his writing-desk it was with the manner of one entirely satisfied with himself and his own exertions. Still, a generous regret mingled with his triumph. It was a great thing to have destroyed the most pernicious privateer that sailed out of France; and yet it was a melancholy fate to befall seventy or eighty human beings—to perish like so many curling caterpillars, destroyed by fire. Nevertheless, the thing was done; and it must be reported to the authorities above him. The following letter was consequently written to the commanding officer in that sea, viz.:

His Majesty's Ship Proserpine, off the mouth of the Golo, Island of Corsica, July 23, 1799.

My Lord—I have the satisfaction of reporting, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the destruction of the Republican privateer, the le Few-Folly, commanded by the notorious Raoul Yvard, on the night of the 22d inst. The circumstances attending this important success are as follows: Understanding that the celebrated picaroon had been on the Neapolitan and Roman coasts, doing much mischief, I took his Majesty's ship close in, following up the peninsula, with the land in sight, until we got through the Canal of Elba, early on the morning of the 21st. On opening Porto Ferrajo bay, we saw a lugger lying at anchor off the town, with English colors flying. As this was a friendly port, we could not suppose the craft to be the le Few-Folly; but, determined to make sure, we beat in, signalling the stranger, until he took advantage of our stretching well over to the eastward to slip round the rocks and get off to windward. We followed for a short distance and then ran over under the lee of Capraya, where we remained until the morning of the 22d, when we again went off the town. We found the lugger in the offing; and being now well satisfied of her character, and it falling calm, I sent the boats after her, under Messrs. Winchester and Griffin, the first and second of this ship. After a sharp skirmish, in which we sustained some loss, though that of the Republicans was evidently much greater, Monsieur Yvard succeeded in effecting his escape in consequence of a breeze's suddenly springing up. Sail was now made on the ship, and we chased the lugger into the mouth of the Golo. Having fortunately captured a felucca with a quantity of tar and other combustible materials on board, as we drew in with the land, I determined to make a fire-ship of her, and to destroy the enemy by that mode; he having anchored within the shoals, beyond the reach of shot. Mr. Winchester, the first, having been wounded in the boat-affair, I intrusted the execution of this duty to Mr. Griffin, who handsomely volunteered, and by whom it was effectually discharged about ten last evening in the coolest and most officer-like manner. I inclose this gentleman's report of the affair and beg leave to recommend him to the favor of my Lords Commissioners. With Mr. Winchester's good conduct under a sharp fire in the morning the service has also every reason to be satisfied. I hope this valuable officer will soon be able to return to duty.

Permit me to congratulate you, my lord, on the complete destruction of this most pernicious cruiser of the enemy. So effectual has it been, that not a spar or a fragment of wreck remains. We have reason to think every soul on board perished; and though this fearful loss of human life is to be deeply deplored, it has been made in the service of good government and religion. The lugger was filled with loose women; our people hearing them singing their philosophical and irreligious songs, as they approached with the fire-vessel. I shall search the coast for any rafts that may be drifting about, and then proceed to Leghorn for fresh provisions.

I have the honor to be, my lord,

Your lordship's most obedient servant, RICHARD CUFFE.

To Rear Admiral the Right Hon. Lord Nelson, Duke of Bronte, &c., &c., &c.

Cuffe read this report over twice; then he sent for Griffin, to whom he read it aloud, glancing his eye meaningly at his subordinate, when he came to the part where he spoke of the young man's good conduct.

"So much for that d——d Jack-o'-Lantern, Griffin! I fancy it will lead no one else on a wild-goose chase."

"I trust not, sir. Will you allow me to suggest a slight alteration in the spelling of the lugger's name, Captain Cuffe; the clerk can make it when he writes out the letter fairly."

"Aye—I dare say it is different from what we would have it; French spelling being no great matter in general. Put it as you please; though Nelson has as great a contempt for their boasted philosophy and learning as I have myself. I fancy you will find all the English spelt right. How do you write their confounded gibberish?"

"Feu-Follet, sir, pronouncing the last part of it fol-lay; not fol-ly. I was thinking of asking leave, Captain Cuffe, to take one of the cutters and pull up to the lugger's anchorage and see if anything can be found of her wreck. The ship will hardly get under way until the westerly wind comes."

"No; probably not. I will order my gig manned, and we'll go together. Poor Winchester must keep house awhile; so there is no use in asking him. I saw no necessity for putting Nelson into a passion by saying anything about the exact amount of our loss in that boat scrape, Griffin."

"I agree with you, sir, that it is best as it is. 'Some loss' covers everything—it means 'more or less.'"

"That was just my notion. I dare say there may have been twenty women in the lugger."

"I can't answer for the number, sir; but I heard female singing as we got near in the fire-ship, and think it likely there may have been that number. The lugger was full-manned; for they were like bees swarming on her forecastle when we were dropping foul. I saw Raoul Yvard by the light of the fire as plainly as I now see you, and might have picked him off with a musket; but that would hardly have been honorable."

To this Cuffe assented, and then he led the way on deck, having previously ordered the boats manned. The two officers proceeded to the spot where they supposed the Feu-Follet had been anchored, and rowed round for near an hour, endeavoring to find some traces of her wreck on the bottom. Griffin suggested that, when the magazine was drowned, in the hurry and confusion of the moment, the cock may have been left open—a circumstance that might very well have carried down the bottom of so small a vessel in two or three hours; more especially after her hull had burnt to the water's edge. The next thing was to find this bottom, by no means a hopeless task, as the waters of the Mediterranean are usually so clear that the eye can penetrate several fathoms, even off the mouth of the Golo—a stream that brought more or less debris from the mountains. It is scarcely necessary to say that the search was not rewarded with success, the Feu-Follet being, just at that time, snug at anchor at Bastia, where her people had already taken out her wounded mainmast, with a view to step a new one in its place. At that very moment, Carlo Giuntotardi, his niece, and Raoul Yvard were walking up the principal street of the town, the place standing on a hill, like Porto Ferrajo, perfectly at their ease as regards fire-ships, English frigates, and the dangers of the seas. But all this was a profound mystery to Cuffe and his companions, who had long been in the habit of putting the most favorable constructions on the results of their professional undertakings, and certainly not altogether without reason; and who nothing doubted that le Feu-Follet had, to use their own language, "laid her bones somewhere along-shore here."

After two or three hours passed in fruitless search Cuffe determined to return to his ship. He was a keen sportsman and had brought a fowling-piece with him in his gig, with a half-formed design of landing and whiling away the time, until the westerly wind came, among some marshes that he saw near the shore, but had been persuaded by Griffin not to venture.

"There must be woodcock in that wet ground, Griffin," he said, as he reluctantly yielded a little in his intention; "and Winchester would fancy a bird exceedingly in a day or two. I never was hit in my life that I did not feel a desire for game after the fever was gone. Snipe, too, must live on the banks of that stream. Snipe are coming in season now, Griffin?"

"It's more likely, sir, that some of the privateersmen have got ashore on planks and empty casks, and are prowling about in the weeds, watching our boats. Three or four of them would be too much for you, Captain Cuffe, as the scoundrels all carry knives as long as ship's cutlasses."

"I suppose your notion may be true; and I shall have to give it up. Pull back to the frigate, Davy, and we'll be off after some more of these French ragamuffins."

This settled the matter. In half an hour the boats were swinging at the Proserpine's quarters; and three hours later the ship was under her canvas, standing slowly off the land. That day, however, the zephyr was exceedingly light, and the sun set just as the ship got the small island of Pianosa abeam; when the air came from the northward, and the ship's head was laid in to the eastward; the course lying between the land just mentioned and that of Elba. All night the Proserpine was slowly fanning her way along the south side of the latter island, when, getting the southerly air again in the morning, she reappeared in the Canal of Piombino as the day advanced, precisely as she had done before, when first introduced to the acquaintance of the reader. Cuffe had given orders to be called, as usual, when the light was about to return; it being a practice with him, in that active and pregnant war, to be on deck at such moments, in order to ascertain, with his own eyes, what the fortunes of the night had brought within his reach.

"Well, Mr. Griffin," he said, as soon as he had received the salutation of the officer of the watch, "you have had a still night of it. Yonder is the Point of Piombino, I see; and here we have got Elba and this little rocky island again on our larboard hand. One day is surprisingly like another about these times, for us mariners in particular."

"Do you really think so, Captain Cuffe?—Now, to my notion, this day hasn't had its equal on the Proserpine's log, since we got hold of l'Epervier and her convoy. You forget, sir, that we destroyed le Feu-Follet last night!"

"Aye—that is something—especially for you, Griffin. Well, Nelson will hear of it by mail as soon as we can get into Leghorn, which will be immediately after I have had an opportunity of communicating with these people in Porto Ferrajo. After all that has passed, the least we can do is to let your veechy-govern-the-tories know of our success."

"Sail, ho!" shouted the lookout, on the foretopsail-yard.

The two officers turned, and gazed round them in every direction, when the captain made the customary demand of "Where-away?"

"Here, sir, close aboard of us, on our larboard hand, and on our weather quarter."

"On our weather quarter! D—n me if that can be true, Griffin. There is nothing but the island there. The fellow cannot have mistaken this little island for the hull of a ship?"

"If he has, sir," answered Griffin, laughing, "it must be for a twenty-decker. That is Ben Brown aloft, and he is as good a lookout as we have in the ship."

"Do you see her, sir?" demanded Ben Brown, looking over his shoulder to put the question.

"Not a bit of her," cried Cuffe. "You must be dreaming, fellow. What does she look like?"

"There, this small island shuts her in from the deck, sir. She is a lugger; and looks as much like the one we burnt last night, sir, as one of our catheads is like t'other."

"A lugger!" exclaimed Cuffe. "What, another of the blackguards! By Jove! I'll go aloft and take a look for myself. It's ten to one that I see her from the maintop."

In three minutes more, Captain Cuffe was in the top in question; having passed through the lubber-hole, as every sensible man does, in a frigate, more especially when she stands up for want of wind. That was an age in which promotion was rapid, there being few gray-bearded lieutenants, then, in the English marine; and even admirals were not wanting who had not cut all their wisdom-teeth. Cuffe, consequently, was still a young man; and it cost him no great effort to get up his ship's ratlins in the manner named. Once in the top, he had all his eyes about him. For quite a minute he stood motionless, gazing in the direction that had been pointed out by Ben Brown. All this time Griffin stood on the quarter-deck, looking quite as intently at his superior as the latter gazed at the strange sail. Then Cuffe deigned to cast a glance literally beneath him, in order to appease the curiosity which, he well understood, it was so natural for the officer of the watch to feel. Griffin did not dare to ask his captain what he saw; but he looked a volume of questions on the interesting subject.

"A sister corsair, by Jupiter Ammon!" cried Cuffe; "a twin sister, too; for they are as much alike as one cathead is like another. More too, by Jove, if I am any judge."

"What will you have us do, Captain Cuffe?" inquired the lieutenant. "We are now going to leeward, all the while, I don't know, sir, that there is positively a current here, but—"

"Very well, sir—very well—haul up on the larboard tack, as soon as possible, and get the larboard batteries clear. We may have to cripple the chap in order to get hold of him."

As this was said, Cuffe descended through the same lubber-hole and soon appeared on deck. The ship now became a scene of activity and bustle. All hands were called, and the guns were cleared away by some, while others braced the yards, according to the new line of sailing.

The reader would be greatly aided, in understanding what is to follow, could he, perchance, cast a look at a map of the coast of Italy. He will there see that the eastern side of the Island of Elba runs in a nearly north and south direction, Piombino lying off about north-northeast from its northern extremity. Near this northern extremity lies the little rocky islet so often mentioned, or the spot which Napoleon, fifteen years later, selected as the advanced redoubt of his insular empire. Of course the Proserpine was on one side of this islet and the strange lugger on the other. The first had got so far through the Canal as to be able to haul close upon the wind, on the larboard tack, and yet to clear the islet; while the last was just far enough to windward, or sufficiently to the southward, to be shut out from view from the frigate's decks by the intervening rocks. As the distance from the islet to the island did not much exceed a hundred or two yards, Captain Cuffe hoped to inclose his chase between himself and the land, never dreaming that the stranger would think of standing through so narrow and rocky a pass. He did not know his man, however, who was Raoul Yvard; and who had come this way from Bastia, in the hope of escaping any further collision with his formidable foe. He had seen the frigate's lofty sails above the rock as soon as it was light; and, being under no hallucination on the subject of her existence, he knew her at a glance. His first order was to haul everything as flat as possible; and his great desire was to get from under the lee of the mountains of Elba into this very pass, through which the wind drew with more force than it blew anywhere near by.

As the Proserpine was quite a league off in the Canal, le Feu-Follet, which sailed so much the fastest in light winds, had abundance of time to effect her object. Instead of avoiding the narrow pass between the two islands, Raoul glided boldly into it; and by keeping vigilant eyes on his fore-yard, to apprise him of danger, he succeeded in making two stretches in the strait itself, coming out to the southward on the starboard tack, handsomely clearing the end of the islet at the very instant the frigate appeared on the other side of the pass. The lugger had now an easy task of it; for she had only to watch her enemy, and tack in season, to keep the islet between them, since the English did not dare to carry so large a ship through so narrow an opening. This advantage Raoul did not overlook, and Cuffe had gone about twice, closing each time nearer and nearer to the islet, before he was satisfied that his guns would be of no service until he could at least weather the intervening object, after which they would most probably be useless in so light a wind by the distance between them and their enemy.

"Never mind, Mr. Griffin; let this scamp go," said the captain, when he made this material discovery; "it is pretty well to have cleared the seas of one of them. Besides, we do not know that this is an enemy at all. He showed no colors, and seems to have just come out of Porto Ferrajo, a friendly haven."

"Raoul Yvard did that, sir, not once, but twice," muttered Yelverton, who, from the circumstance that he had not been employed in the different attempts on le Feu-Follet, was one of the very few dissentients in the ship touching her fate, "These twins are exceedingly alike; especially Pomp, as the American negro said of his twin children."

This remark passed unheeded; for so deep was the delusion, in the ship, touching the destruction of the privateer, it would have been as hopeless an attempt to try to persuade her officers, and people generally, that le Feu-Follet was not burned, as it would be to induce a "great nation" to believe that it had any of the weaknesses and foibles that confessedly beset smaller communities. The Proserpine was put about again, and, setting her ensign, she stood into the bay of Porto Ferrajo, anchoring quite near the place that Raoul had selected for the same purpose on two previous occasions. The gig was lowered, and Cuffe, accompanied by Griffin as an interpreter, landed to pay the usual visit of ceremony to the authorities.

The wind being so light, several hours were necessary to effect all these changes; and by the time the two officers were ascending the terraced street the day had advanced sufficiently to render the visit suitable as to time. Cuffe appearing in full uniform, with epaulettes and sword, his approach attracted notice; and Vito Viti hurried off to apprise his friend of the honor he was about to receive. The vice-governatore was not taken by surprise, therefore, but had some little time to prepare his excuses for being the dupe of a fraud as impudent as that which Raoul Yvard had so successfully practised on him. The reception was dignified, though courteous; and it had none the less of ceremony, from the circumstance that all which was said by the respective colloquists had to be translated before it could be understood. This circumstance rendered the few first minutes of the interview a little constrained; but each party having something on his mind, of which it was his desire to be relieved, natural feeling soon got the better of forms.

"I ought to explain to you, Sir Cuffe, the manner in which a recent event occurred in our bay here," observed the vice-governatore; "since, without such explanation, you might be apt to consider us neglectful of our duties, and unworthy of the trust which the Grand Duke reposes in us. I allude, as you will at once understand, to the circumstance that le Feu-Follet has twice been lying peaceably under the guns of our batteries, while her commander, and, indeed, some of her crew, have been hospitably entertained on shore."

"Such things must occur in times like these, Mr. Veechy-Governatory; and we seamen set them down to the luck of war," Cuffe answered graciously, being much too magnanimous, under his own success, to think of judging others too harshly. "It might not be so easy to deceive a man-of-war's-man like myself; but I dare say, Veechy-Governatory, had it been anything relating to the administration of your little island here, even Monsieur Yvard would have found you too much for him!"

The reader will perceive that Cuffe had got a new way of pronouncing the appellation of the Elban functionary; a circumstance that was owing to the desire we all have, when addressing foreigners, to speak in their own language rather than in our own. The worthy captain had no more precise ideas of what a vice-governor means than the American people just now seem to possess of the signification of vice-president; but, as he had discovered that the word was pronounced "veechy" in Italian, he was quite willing to give it its true sound; albeit a smile struggled round the mouth of Griffin while he listened.

"You do me no more than justice, Signor Kooffe, or Sir Kooffe, as I presume I ought to address you," answered the functionary; "for, in matters touching our duties on shore here, we are by no means as ignorant as on matters touching your honorable calling. This Raoul Yvard presented himself to me in the character of a British officer, one I esteem and respect; having audaciously assumed the name of a family of high condition and of great power, I believe, among your people—"

"Ah—the barone!" exclaimed Cuffe, who, having discovered by his intercourse with the southern Italians that this word meant a "rascal" as well as a "baron," was fond of using it on suitable occasions. "Pray, Veechy-Governatory, what name did he assume? Ca'endish, or Howard, or Seymour, or some of those great nobs, Griffin, I'll engage! I wonder that he spared Nelson!"

"No, Signore, he took the family appellation of another illustrious race. The republican corsair presented himself before me as a Sir Smees—the son of a certain Milordo Smees."

"Smees—Smees—Smees!—I've no recollection of any such name in the peerage. It can't be Seymour that the Veechy means!—That is a great name, certainly; and some of them have been in the service; it is possible this barone may have had the impudence to hail for a Seymour!"

"I rather think not, Captain Cuffe. 'Smees' is very much as an Italian would pronounce 'Smith,' as, you know, the French call it 'Smeet.' It will turn out that this Mr. Raoul has seized upon the first English name he fell in with, as a man overboard clutches at a spar adrift or a life-buoy; and that happened to be 'Smith.'"

"Who the devil ever heard of a my lord Smith! A pretty sort of aristocracy we should have, Griffin, if it were made up of such fellows!"

"Why, sir, the name can make no great difference; the deeds and the antiquity forming the essentials."

"And he assumed a title, too—Sir Smees!—I dare say he was ready to swear His Majesty made him a Knight Banneret, under the royal ensign and on the deck of his own ship, as was done with some of the old admirals. The veechy, however, has forgotten a part of the story, as it must have been sir John, or Sir Thomas Smees, at least."

"No, sir; that is the way with the French and the Italians, who do not understand our manner of using Christian names with titles, as in our Sir Edwards and Lord Harries and Lady Betties."

"Blast the French! I can believe anything of them, though I should have thought that these Italians knew better. However, it may be well to give the veechy a hint of what we have been saying, or it may seem rude—and, hark'ye, Griffin, while you are about it, rub him down a little touching books and that sort of thing; for the surgeon tells me he has heard of him in Leghorn as a regular leaf-cutter."

The lieutenant did as ordered, throwing in an allusion to Andrea's reputation for learning, that, under the circumstances, was not ill-timed, and which, as it was well enough expressed, was exceedingly grateful to his listener just at that awkward moment.

"My claims to literature are but small, Signore," answered Andrea, with humility, "as I beg you will inform Sir Kooffe; but they were sufficient to detect certain assumptions of this corsair; a circumstance that came very near bringing about an exposure at a most critical moment. He had the audacity, Signore, to wish to persuade me that there was a certain English orator of the same name and of equal merit of him of Roma and Pompeii—one Sir Cicero!"

"The barone!" again exclaimed Cuffe, when this new offence of Raoul's was explained to him. "I believe the rascal was up to anything. But there is an end of him now, with all his Sir Smees and Sir Ciceros into the bargain. Just let the veechy into the secret of the fellow's fate, Griffin."

Griffin then related to the vice-governatore the manner in which it was supposed that le Feu-Follet, Raoul Yvard, and all his associates had been consumed like caterpillars on a tree. Andrea Barrofaldi listened, with a proper degree of horror expressed in his countenance; but Vito Viti heard the tale with signs of indifference and incredulity that he did not care to conceal. Nevertheless, Griffin persevered, until he had even given an account of the manner in which he and Cuffe examined the lugger's anchorage, in the bootless attempt to discover the wreck.

To all this the two functionaries listened with profound attention and a lively surprise. After looking at each other several times, and exchanging significant gestures, Andrea assumed the office of explaining.

"There is some extraordinary mistake in this, Signor Tenente," he said; "for Raoul Yvard still lives. He passed this promontory just as day dawned, in his lugger, this very morning!"

"Aye, he has got that notion from having seen the fellow we fell in with off the harbor here," answered Cuffe, when this speech was translated to him; "and I don't wonder at it, for the two vessels were surprisingly alike. But the barone that we saw burned with our own eyes, Griffin, can never float again. I say barone; for, in my opinion, the Few-Folly was just as much of a rascal as her commander and all who sailed in her."

Griffin explained this; but it met with no favor from the two Italians.

"Not so, Signor Tenente—not so," returned the vice-governatore; "the lugger that passed this morning, we know to be le Feu-Follet, inasmuch as she took one of our own feluccas, in the course of the night, coming from Livorno and Raoul Yvard permitted her to come in, as he said to her padrone, on account of the civil treatment he had received while lying in our port. Nay, he even carried his presumption so far as to send me, by means of the same man, the compliments of 'Sir Smees,' and his hopes of being able some day to make his acknowledgments in person."

The English Captain received this intelligence as might be expected; and unpleasant as it was, after putting various questions to the vice-governatore and receiving the answers, he was obliged, unwillingly enough, to believe it all. He had brought his official report in his pocket; and as the conversation proceeded, he covertly tore it into fragments so small that even a Mahommedan would reject them as not large enough to write the word "Allah" on.

"It's d—d lucky, Griffin, that letter didn't get to Leghorn this morning," he said, after a long pause. "Nelson would have Bronted me famously had he got it! Yet I never believed half as devoutly in the twenty-nine articles as—"

"I believe there are thirty-nine of them, Captain Cuffe," modestly put in Griffin.

"Well, thirty-nine, if you will—what signifies ten, more or less, in such matters? A man is ordered to believe them all, if there were a hundred. But I never believed in them as devoutly as I believed in the destruction of that infernal picaroon. My faith is unsettled for life!"

Griffin offered a few words of condolence, but he was also too much mortified to be very able to administer consolation. Andrea Barrofaldi, understanding the state of the case, now interposed with his courtesies, and the two officers were invited to share his bachelor's breakfast. What followed, in consequence of this visit, and the communications to which it gave rise, will appear in the course of the narrative.



CHAPTER XIII.

"If ever you have looked on better days, If ever been where bells have knolled to church; If ever sat at any good man's feast! If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied, Let gentleness my strong enforcement be."

SHAKESPEARE.

It is now necessary to advance the time, and to transfer the scene of our tale to another, but not a distant, part of the same sea. Let the reader fancy himself standing at the mouth of a large bay of some sixteen or eighteen miles in diameter, in nearly every direction; though the shores must be indented with advancing promontories and receding curvatures, while the depth of the whole might possibly a little exceed the greatest width. He will then occupy the spot of which we wish to present to him one of the fairest panoramas of earth. On his right stands a high, rocky island of dark tufa, rendered gay, amid all its magnificent formations, by smiling vineyards and teeming villages, and interesting by ruins that commemorate events as remote as the Caesars. A narrow passage of the blue Mediterranean separates this island from a bold cape on the main, whence follows a succession of picturesque, village-clad heights and valleys, relieved by scenery equally bold and soft, and adorned by the monkish habitations called in the language of the country Camaldolis, until we reach a small city which stands on a plain that rises above the water between one and two hundred feet, on a base of tufa, and the houses of which extend to the very verge of the dizzy cliffs that limit its extent on the north. The plain itself is like a hive, with its dwellings and scenes of life, while the heights behind it teem with cottages and the signs of human labor. Quitting this smiling part of the coast, we reach a point, always following the circuit of the bay, where the hills or heights tower into ragged mountains, which stretch their pointed peaks upward to some six or seven thousand feet toward the clouds, having sides now wild with precipices and ravines, now picturesque with shooting-towers, hamlets, monasteries, and bridle-paths; and bases dotted, or rather lined, with towns and villages. Here the mountain formation quits the margin of the bay, following the coast southward or running into the interior of the country; and the shore, sweeping round to the north and west, offers a glimpse into a background of broad plain ere it meets a high, insulated, conical mountain, which properly forms the head of the coast indentation. The human eye never beheld a more affluent scene of houses, cities, villages, vineyards, and country residences than was presented by the broad breast of this isolated mountain, passing which a wider view is obtained of the rich plain that seems to lie behind it, bounded as it is by a wall of a distant and mysterious-looking, yet bold range of the Apennines. Returning to the shore, which now begins to incline more westwardly, we come to another swell of tufa, which has all the characteristic fertility and abruptness of that peculiar formation, a vast and populous town of near half a million of souls being seated, in nearly equal parts, on the limits of the plain and along the margin of the water, or on the hill-sides, climbing to their summits. From this point the northern side of the bay is a confused mass of villages, villas, ruins, palaces, and vines, until we reach its extremity, a low promontory, like its opposite neighbor. A small island comes next, a sort of natural sentinel; then the coast sweeps northward into another and a smaller bay, rich to satiety with relics of the past, terminating at a point some miles further seaward, with a high, reddish, sandy bluff, which almost claims to be a mountain. After this we see two more islands lying westward, one of which is flat, fertile, and more populous, as is said, than any other part of Europe of the same extent; while the other is a glorious combination of pointed mountains, thronged towns, fertile valleys, castles, country houses, and the wrecks of long-dormant volcanoes, thrown together in a grand yet winning confusion. If the reader will to this description add a shore that has scarce a foot that is not interesting with some lore of the past, extending from yesterday into the darkest recesses of history, give life to the water-view with a fleet of little latine-rigged craft, rendered more picturesque by an occasional ship, dot the bay with countless boats of fishermen, and send up a wreath of smoke from the summit of the cone-like mountain that forms the head of the bay, he will get an outline of all that strikes the eye as the stranger approaches Naples from the sea.

The zephyr was again blowing, and the daily fleet of sparanaras, or undecked feluccas, that passes every morning at this season, from the south shore to the capital, and returns at this hour, was stretching out from under Vesuvius; some looking up as high as Massa; others heading toward Sorrento or Vico or Persano, and many keeping more before the wind, toward Castel-a-Mare, or the landings in that neighborhood. The breeze was getting to be so fresh that the fishermen were beginning to pull in toward the land, breaking up their lines, which in some places had extended nearly a league, and this, too, with the boats lying within speaking distance of each other. The head of the bay, indeed, was alive with craft moving in different directions, while a large fleet of English, Russians, Neapolitans, and Turks, composed of two-deckers, frigates, and sloops, lay at their anchors in front of the town. On board of one of the largest of the former was flying the flag of a rear-admiral at the mizzen, the symbol of the commander's rank. A corvette alone was under-way. She had left the anchorage an hour before, and, with studding-sails on her starboard side, was stretching diagonally across the glorious bay, apparently heading toward the passage between Capri and the Point of Campanella, bound to Sicily. This ship might easily have weathered the island; but her commander, an easy sort of person, chose to make a fair wind of it from the start, and he thought, by hugging the coast, he might possibly benefit by the land-breeze during the night, trusting to the zephyr that was then blowing to carry him across the Gulf of Salerno. A frigate, too, shot out of the fleet, under her staysails, as soon as the westerly wind made; but she had dropped an anchor under-foot, and seemed to wait some preparation, or orders, before taking her departure; her captain being at that moment on board the flag-ship, on duty with the rear-admiral. This was the Proserpine thirty-six, Captain Cuffe, a vessel and an officer that are already both acquaintances of the reader. About an hour before the present scene opens, Captain Cuffe, in fact, had been called on board the Foudroyant by signal, where he had found a small, sallow-looking, slightly-built man, with his right arm wanting, pacing the deck of the fore-cabin, impatient for his appearance.

"Well, Cuffe," said this uninviting-looking personage, twitching the stump of the maimed arm, "I see you are out of the flock; are you all ready for sailing?"

"We have one boat ashore after letters, my lord; as soon as she comes off we shall lift our anchor, which is only under-foot."

"Very well—I have sent the Ringdove to the southward on the same errand, and I see she is half a league from the anchorage on her way already. This Mr. Griffin appears to be a fine young man—I like his account of the way he handled his fire-ship; though the French scoundrel did contrive to escape! After all, this Rowl E—E—how do you pronounce the fellow's name, Cuffe? I never can make anything out of their gibberish—"

"Why, to own the truth, Sir Horatio—I beg pardon—my lord—there is something in the English grain of my feelings that would prevent my ever learning French, had I been born and brought up in Paris. There is too much Saxon in me to swallow words that half the time have no meaning."

"I like you all the better for that, Cuffe," answered the admiral, smiling, a change that converted a countenance that was almost ugly when in a state of rest into one that was almost handsome—a peculiarity that is by no means of rare occurrence, when a strong will gives expression to the features, and the heart, at bottom, is really sound. "An Englishman has no business with any Gallic tendencies. This young Mr. Griffin seems to have spirit; and I look upon it always as a good sign when a young man volunteers for a desperate thing of this sort—but he tells me he is only second; where was your first all the while?"

"Why, my lord, he got a little hurt in the brush of the morning; and I would not let him go, as a matter of course. His name is Winchester; I think you must remember him as junior of the Captain, at the affair off St. Vincent. Miller[4] had a good opinion of him; and when I went from the Arrow to the Proserpine he got him sent as my second. The death of poor Drury made him first in the natural way."

[4] Ralph Willet Miller, the officer who commanded the ship to which Nelson shifted his pennant, at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. This gentleman was an American, and a native Manhattanese; his near relatives of the same name still residing in New York. It is believed that he got the name of Willet from the first English Mayor, a gentleman from whom are descended many of the old families of the lower part of the state, more particularly those on Long Island.

"I have some recollection of him, Cuffe. That was a brilliant day, and all its events should be impressed on my mind. You tell me Mr. Griffin fairly grappled the lugger's cable?"

"Of that there can be no manner of doubt. I saw the two vessels foul of each other with my night-glass—and seemingly both were on fire—as plainly as I ever saw Vesuvius in a dark night."

"And yet this Few-Folly has escaped! Poor Griffin has run a desperate risk for little purpose."

"He has, indeed, my lord."

Here, Nelson, who had been pacing the cabin with quick steps, while Cuffe stood, respectfully declining the gesture to be seated at the table in its centre, suddenly stopped and looked the Captain steadily in the face. The expression of his countenance was now mild and earnest, and the pause which preceded his words gave the latter solemnity and weight.

"The day will come, Cuffe," he said, "when this young man will rejoice that his design on these picaroons, Frenchmen as they are, failed. Yes, from the bottom of his heart will he be glad."

"My lord!"

"I know you think this strange, Captain Cuffe; but no man sleeps the sounder for having burnt or blown up a hundred of his fellow-creatures like so many widows at a suttee. But we are not the less to commend those who did what was certainly their duty."

"Am I to understand, Lord Nelson, that the Proserpine is not to destroy the Few-Folly at every hazard, should we again have the luck to fall in with her?"

"By no means, sir. Our orders are to burn, sink, and destroy. Such is England's policy in this desperate war; and it must be carried out. You know what we are contending for as well as I do; and it is a struggle that is not to be carried on with courtesies; still, one would not wish to see a glorious and sacred cause tarnished by inhumanity. Men that fall in fair, manly combat are to be envied rather than pitied, since it is only paying the great debt of nature a little sooner than might otherwise have happened; but there is something revolting to humanity in burning up our fellow-creatures as one would burn rags after the plague. Nevertheless, this lugger must be had at any price; for English commerce and English power are not to be cut up and braved in this audacious manner with impunity. The career of these French tigers must be stopped at every sacrifice, Captain Cuffe."

"I know that, my lord, and I like a republican as little as you can do, or His Majesty himself, for that matter; and, I take it, he has as little relish for the animal as flesh and blood can give."

"I know you do, Cuffe—I'm sure you do; and I esteem you all the more for it. It is a part of an Englishman's religion, in times like these, to hate a Frenchman. I went across the Channel after the peace of '83 to learn their language, but had so little sympathy with them, even in peaceable times, as never to be able to make out to write a letter in it, or even to ask intelligibly for the necessaries of life."

"If you can ask for anything, it far surpasses my efforts; I never can tell head from stern in their dialect."

"It is an infernal jargon, Cuffe, and has got to be so confused by their academies, and false philosophy and infidelity, that they will shortly be at a loss to understand it themselves. What sort of names they give their ships, for instance, now they have beheaded their king and denounced their God! Who ever heard of christening a craft, as you tell me this lugger is named, the 'Few-Folly'? I believe I've got the picaroon's title right?"

"Quite right—Griffin pronounces it so, though he has got to be a little queerish in his own English, by using so much French and Italian. The young man's father was a consul; and he has half a dozen foreign lingoes stowed away in his brain. He pronounces Folly something broadish—like Fol-lay, I believe; but it means all the same thing. Folly is folly, pronounce it as you will."

Nelson continued to pace his cabin, working the stump of his arm, and smiling half-bitterly; half in a sort of irony that inclined him to be in a good-humor with himself.

"Do you remember the ship, Cuffe, we had that sharp brush with off Toulon, in old Agamemnon?" he said, after making a turn or two in silence. "I mean the dismasted eighty-four that was in tow of the frigate, and which we peppered until their Gallic soup had some taste to it! Now, do you happen to know her real name in good honest English?"

"I do not, my lord. I remember, they said she was called the Ca Ira; and I always supposed that it was the name of some old Greek or Roman—or, perhaps, of one of their new-fangled republican saints."

"They!—D—n 'em, they've got no saints to name, my good fellow, since they cashiered all the old ones! There is something respectable in the names of a Spanish fleet; and one feels that he is flogging gentlemen, at least, while he is at work on them. No, sir, Ca Ira means neither more nor less than 'That'll Do'; and I fancy, Cuffe, they thought of their own name more than once while the old Greek was hanging on their quarter, smashing their cabin windows for them! A pretty sound it would have been had we got her and put her into our own service—His Majesty's ship 'That'll Do,' 84, Captain Cuffe!"

"I certainly should have petitioned my Lords Commissioners to change her name."

"You would have done quite right. A man might as well sail in a man-of-war called the 'Enough.' Then, there was the three-decker that helped her out of the scrape, the Sans-Culottes, as the French call her; I suppose you know what that means?"

"Not I, my lord; to own the truth, I'm no scholar, and am entirely without ambition in that way. 'Sans,' I suppose, is the French for 'saint'; but who 'Culottes' was, I've not the least notion."

Nelson smiled, and the turn the conversation had taken appeared to give him secret satisfaction. If the truth were known, something lay heavily on his mind; and, with one of his strong impulses, his feelings disposed him to rush from one extreme to the other, as is often the case with men who are controlled by such masters; more especially if their general disposition is to the right.

"You're wrong this time, my dear Cuffe," he said; "for 'sans' means 'without' in French, and 'culottes' means 'breeches.' Think of naming a three-decker the 'Without Breeches'! I do not see how any respectable flag-officer can mention such names in his despatches without a feeling of awkwardness that must come near to capsizing all his philosophy. The line was formed by the Republic's ship, the 'That'll Do,' leading, supported by the 'Without Breeches,' as her second astern!—Ha! Cuffe—D—e, sir, if I'd serve in a marine that had such names to the ships! It's a thousand times worse than all those saints the Spaniards tack on to their vessels—like a line of boats towing a ship up to her moorings!"

Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a midshipman, who came down to say that a man and a woman from the shore wished to see the rear-admiral on pressing business.

"Let them come down, sir," answered Nelson; "I've a hard life of it, Cuffe; there is not a washerwoman or a shopkeeper in Naples who does not treat me exactly as if I were a podesta, and it were my duty to hear all the contentions about lost clothes and mislaid goods. His Majesty must appoint a Lord Chief Justice of the Steerage, to administer the law for the benefit of the young gentlemen, or he'll soon get no officer to serve with a flag at his mast-head."

"Surely, my lord, the captains can take this weight off your shoulders!"

"Aye, there are men in the fleet that can, and there are men who do; but there are men who do not. But here comes the plaintiff, I suppose—you shall hear the case, and act as a puisne judge in the matter."

This was said as the cabin-door opened, and the expected guests entered. They were a man turned of fifty and a girl of nineteen. The former was a person of plain exterior, abstracted air, and downcast look; but the latter had all the expression, beauty, nature, and grace of mien that so singularly marked the deportment and countenance of Ghita Caraccioli[5]. In a word, the two visitors were Carlo Giuntotardi and his gentle niece. Nelson was struck with the modesty of mien and loveliness of the latter, and he courteously invited her to be seated, though he and Cuffe both continued standing. A few efforts at making himself understood, however, soon satisfied this renowned admiral that he had need of an interpreter, his guests speaking no English, and his own Italian being too imperfect to carry on anything like a connected conversation. He hesitated an instant, and then went to the door of the inner cabin, an apartment in which voices had occasionally been heard the whole time, one of the speakers being a female. Here he stood, leaning against the bulkhead, as if in doubt; and then he uttered his wishes.

[5] It may aid the reader who is ignorant of Italian, to tell him that this name is pronounced Ca-rach-cho-li. The same is true of Gwee-cho-li—or Guiccioli—Byron's mistress.

"I must ask a service of you, which I would not think of doing in any ordinary case," he said, with a gentleness of voice and manner that showed he addressed one who had habitual influence over him. "I want an interpreter between myself and the second handsomest woman in the kingdom of Naples: I know no one so fit for the office as the first."

"With all my heart, dear Nelson," answered a full, rich female voice from within. "Sir William is busied in his antiquities, and I was really getting to be ennuied for want of an occupation. I suppose you have the wrongs of some injured lady to redress in your capacity of Lord High Chancellor of the Fleet."

"I am yet ignorant of the nature of the complaint; but it is not unlikely it will turn out to be something like that which you suspect. Even in such a case no better intercessor can be required than one who is so much superior to the frailties and weaknesses of her sex in general."

The lady who now made her appearance from the inner cabin, though strikingly handsome, had not that in her appearance which would justify the implied eulogium of the British admiral's last speech. There was an appearance of art and worldliness in the expression of her countenance that was only so much the more striking when placed in obvious contrast to the ingenuous nature and calm purity that shone in every lineament of the face of Ghita. One might very well have passed for an image of the goddess Circe; while the other would have made no bad model for a vestal, could the latter have borne the moral impression of the sublime and heart-searching truths that are inculcated by the real oracles of God. Then the lady was a woman in the meridian of her charms, aided by all the cunning of the toilet and a taste that was piquant and peculiar, if not pure; while the other stood in her simple, dark Neapolitan bodice and a head that had no other ornament than its own silken tresses; a style of dress, however, that set off her faultless form and winning countenance more than could have been done by any of the devices of the mantua-maker or the milliner. The lady betrayed a little surprise, and perhaps a shade of uneasiness, as her glance first fell on Ghita; but, much too good an actress to be disconcerted easily, she smiled and immediately recovered her ease.

"Is this the being, Nelson, who comes with such a petition?" she demanded, with a touch of natural womanly sensibility in her voice; "and that poor old man, I dare say, is the heart-stricken father."

"As to the errand, you will remember, I know nothing as yet, and pledge myself to nothing."

"Captain Cuffe, I hope I have the pleasure to see you well. Sir William joins the admiral in hoping you will make one of our little family party to-day at dinner, and—"

"And what says the mistress—not of the house, but of the ship?" put in Nelson, whose eyes had scarce turned an instant from the face of the siren since she entered the fore-cabin.

"That she—always disclaiming the title, honorable though it be—that she unites with all the rest in inviting Captain Cuffe to honor us with his company. Nelson tells me you were one of his old Agamemnons, as he calls you all, aged and young, men and boys, little and big; and I love even the sound of the name. What a glorious title for a ship— Agamemnon!—A Greek, led on by a true English heart!"

"Aye, it is somewhat better than 'That'll Do,' and the other affair, ha! Cuffe!" returned the admiral, smiling and glancing at his subordinate; "but all this time we are ignorant of the errand of this honest-looking Italian and his exceedingly innocent-looking companion."

"Well, then, in this matter, gentlemen, I am only to be regarded as a mere mouthpiece," put in the lady—"an echo, to repeat what reaches mine ear, though it be an Irish echo, which repeats in a different tongue from that in which the sounds first reach it. Put your questions, my lord; they shall be faithfully rendered, with all the answers that may be given. I only hope Captain Cuffe will come out of this affair as innocent as he now looks."

The two gentlemen smiled; but the trifling could not disturb its subject, as he was profoundly ignorant of the existence of the two strangers five minutes before; while the boldness of the allusion rather suited the freedom of a ship and the habits of the part of the world in which they happened to be.

"We will first inquire the name of this worthy man, if you will condescend to ask it," observed Nelson to his fair friend.

"Carlo Giuntotardi, noble lady—once a poor scholar, in Napoli, here, and now a keeper of the prince's watch-towers on the heights of Argentaro," was the quiet but respectful answer of the man, who, like his niece, had declined taking a seat, a circumstance that left the whole party standing. "Carlo Giuntotardi, illustrious lady."

"A very good name, Signore, and one of which you have no need to be ashamed. And thine?" turning to the girl.

"Ghita Caraccioli, Eccellenza; the sister's daughter of this honest tower-keeper of the prince."

Had a bomb exploded over the Foudroyant, Nelson certainly would not have been as much startled; while the lady's beautiful face assumed a look of dark resentment, not unmingled with fear. Even Cuffe understood enough of the sounds to catch the name, and he advanced a step with lively curiosity and an anxious concern expressed on his ruddy face. But these emotions soon subsided, the lady first regaining her self-possession, though Nelson paced the cabin five or six times, working the stump of his arm before he even looked up again.

"I was about to ask if there never is to be an end to these annoyances," observed the lady in English; "but there must be some mistake in this. The house of Caraccioli is one of the most illustrious of Italy, and can scarcely have any of this class, who feel an interest in him of whom we are thinking. I will, therefore, inquire further into this matter. Signorina,"—changing the language to Italian and speaking with severity, like one who questioned what she heard—"Caraccioli is a noble name, and is not often borne by the daughter of any prince's tower-keepers!"

Ghita trembled, and she looked abashed. But she was sustained by too high a principle and was too innocent herself to stand long rebuked in the presence of guilt; and, as the flush which resembled that which so often passes over her native skies at even left her countenance, she raised her eyes to the dark-looking face of the lady and gave her answer.

"I know what your Eccellenza means," she said, "and feel its justice. Still it is cruel to the child not to bear the name of her parent. My father was called Caraccioli, and he left me his name as my sole inheritance. What may have been his right to it, let my uncle say."

"Speak, then, Signor Giuntotardi. First give us the history of this name; then tell us what has brought you here."

"Noble lady, my sister, as pious and innocent a woman as ever lived in Italy, and now blessed in heaven, married Don Francesco Caraccioli, the son of Don Francesco of that illustrious family, who now stands condemned to death for having led the fleet against the king; and Ghita here is the only fruit of the union. It is true that the church did not authorize the connection which brought my niece's father into being; but the noble admiral never hesitated to acknowledge his son, and he gave him his name, until love bound him in wedlock with a poor scholar's sister. Then, indeed, his father turned his face from him, and death soon removed both husband and wife from the reach of all earthly displeasure. This is our simple story, noble and illustrious signora, and the reason why my poor niece, here, bears the name as great as that of Caraccioli."

"You mean us to understand, Signor Giuntotardi, that your niece is the grand-daughter of Don Francesco Caraccioli, through a natural son of that unfortunate admiral?"

"Such is the fact, Signora. As my sister was honestly married, I could do no less than bring up her daughter to bear a name that her father was permitted to bear before her."

"Such things are common and require no apology. One question more before I explain to the English admiral what you have said. Does Prince Caraccioli know of the existence of this grand-daughter?"

"Eccellenza, I fear not. Her parents died so soon—I loved the child so well—and there was so little hope that one illustrious as he would wish to acknowledge a connection through the holy church with persons humble as we, that I have never done more to make my niece known than to let her bear the same name as her father."

The lady seemed relieved by this; and she now briefly explained to Nelson the substance of what the other had said.

"It may be," she added, "they are here on that errand, concerning which we have already heard so much, and so uselessly; but I rather think not, from this account; for what interest can they feel in one who is absolutely a stranger to them? It may be some idle conceit, however, connected with this same affair. What is your wish, Ghita? This is Don Horatio Nelsoni, the illustrious English admiral, of whom you have heard so much."

"Eccellenza, I am sure of it," answered Ghita, earnestly; "my good uncle, here, has told you who we are; and you may well guess our business. We came from St. Agata, on the other side of the bay, only this morning, and heard from a relation in the town that Don Francesco had been seized that very hour. Since, we are told that he has been condemned to die, for treason against the king; and that by officers who met in this very ship. Some even say, Signora, that he is to meet his fate ere the sun set."

"If this should be so, what reason is it that thou shouldst give thyself concern?"

"Eccellenza, he was my father's father; and, though I never saw him, I know that the same blood runs in our veins. When this is so, there should be the same feelings in our hearts."

"This is well, Ghita, in appearance at least; but thou canst hardly feel much for one thou never saw'st and who has even refused to own thee for a child. Thou art young, too, and of a sex that should ever be cautious; it is unwise for men, even, to meddle with politics in these troubled times."

"Signora, it is not politics that brings me here, but nature, and duty, and pious love for my father's father."

"What wouldst thou say, then?" answered the lady impatiently; "remember thou occupiest one whose time is precious and of high importance to entire nations."

"Eccellenza, I believe it, and will try to be brief. I wish to beg my grandfather's life of this illustrious stranger. They tell me the king will refuse him nothing, and he has only to ask it of Don Ferdinando to obtain it."

Many would have thought the matured charms of the lady superior to the innocent-looking beauty of the girl; but no one could have come to such an opinion who saw them both at that moment. While Ghita's face was radiant with a holy hope and the pious earnestness which urged her on, a dark expression lowered about the countenance of the English beauty that deprived it of one of its greatest attractions by depriving it of the softness and gentleness of her sex. Had there not been observers of what passed, it is probable the girl would have been abruptly repulsed; but management formed no small part of the character of this woman, and she controlled her feelings in order to effect her purposes.

"This admiral is not a Neapolitan, but an Englishman," she answered, "and can have no concern with the justice of your king. He would scarcely think it decent to interfere with the execution of the laws of Naples."

"Signora, it is always decent to interfere to save life; nay, it is more—it is merciful in the eyes of God."

"What canst thou know of this? A conceit that thou hast the blood of the Caraccioli has made thee forget thy sex and condition, and placed a romantic notion of duty before thine eyes."

"No, Signora, it is not so. For eighteen years have I been taught that the unfortunate admiral was my grandfather; but, as it has been his pleasure to wish not to see me, never have I felt the desire to intrude on his time. Before this morning never has the thought that I have the blood of the Caraccioli crossed my mind, unless it was to mourn for the sin of my grandmother; and even now it has come to cause me to mourn for the cruel fate that threatens the days of her partner in guilt."

"Thou art bold to speak thus of thy parents, girl, and they, too, of the noble and great!"

This was said with a flushed brow and still more lowering look; for, haply, there were incidents in the past life of that lady which made the simple language of a severe morality alike offensive to her ears and her recollections.

"It is not I, Eccellenza, but God, that speaketh thus. The crime, too, is another reason why this great admiral should use his influence to save a sinner from so hurried an end. Death is terrible to all but to those who trust, with heart and soul, to the mediation of the Son of God; but it is doubly so when it comes suddenly and unlooked for. It is true, Don Francesco is aged; but have you not remarked, signora, that it is these very aged who become hardened to their state, and live on, as if never to die?—I mean those aged who suffer youth to pass, as if the pleasures of life are never to have an end."

"Thou art too young to set up for a reformer of the world, girl; and forgettest that this is the ship of one of the greatest officers of Europe, and that he has many demands on his time. Thou canst now go; I will repeat what thou hast said."

"I have another request to ask, Eccellenza—permission to see Don Francesco; that I may at least receive his blessing."

"He is not in this ship. Thou wilt find him on board the Minerva frigate; no doubt he will not be denied. Stop—these few lines will aid thy request. Addio, signorina."

"And may I carry hope with me, Eccellenza? Think how sweet life is to those who have passed their days so long in affluence and honor. It would be like a messenger from heaven for a grand-child to bring but a ray of hope."

"I authorize none. The matter is in the hands of the Neapolitan authorities, and we English cannot meddle. Go, now, both of you—the illustrious admiral has business of importance that presses."

Ghita turned, and slowly and sorrowfully she left the cabin. At the very door she met the English lieutenant, who was in charge of the unhappy prisoner, coming with a last request that he might not be suspended like a thief, but might at least die the death of a soldier. It would exceed the limits set to our tale were we to dwell on the conversation which ensued; but every intelligent reader knows that the application failed.



CHAPTER XIV.

"Like other tyrants, Death delights to smite What smitten most proclaims the pride of power, And arbitrary nod."

YOUNG.

It is probable that Nelson never knew precisely what passed between Ghita and the lady mentioned in the last chapter. At all events, like every other application that was made to the English admiral in connection with this sad affair, that of Ghita produced no results. Even the mode of execution was unchanged; an indecent haste accompanying the whole transaction, as in the equally celebrated trial and death of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien. Cuffe remained to dine with the commander-in-chief, while Carlo Giuntotardi and his niece got into their boat and took their way through the crowded roadstead toward the Neapolitan frigate that now formed the prison of the unfortunate Caraccioli.

A request at the gangway was all that was necessary to procure an admission on board the ship. As soon as the Signor Giuntotardi reached the quarter-deck he let his errand be known, and a messenger was sent below to ascertain if the prisoner would see two visitors, the name of the uncle being alone given. Francesco Caraccioli, of the Princes Caraccioli, or, as he was more commonly called in English, Prince Caraccioli, was now a man approaching seventy; and, being a member of one of the most illustrious houses of lower Italy, he had long been trusted in employments of high dignity and command. On his offence—its apology—the indecent haste of his trial and execution, and the irregularity of the whole proceedings, it is now unnecessary to dwell; they have all passed into history, and are familiarly known to the world. That very morning had he been seized and sent on board the Foudroyant; in the cabin of that vessel had a court of his own countrymen convened; and there had he been hastily condemned to death. The hour of doom was near, and he was already in the ship where the execution was to take place.

The messenger of Carlo Giuntotardi found this unfortunate man with his confessor, by whom he had just been shrived. He heard the request with cold indifference, but granted it on the instant, under the impression that it came from some dependent of his family or estates, who had a last favor to ask, or an act of justice to see performed.

"Remain here, father, I beseech you." said the prisoner, perceiving that the priest was about to retire; "it is some contadino, or some tradesman, whose claims have been overlooked. I am happy that he has come: one would wish to stand acquitted of injustice before he dies. Let them come in, my friend."

A sign was given with these words, the door of the cabin was opened, and Ghita, with her uncle, entered. A pause of quite a minute followed, during which the parties regarded each other in silence, the prisoner endeavoring in vain to recall the countenances of his guests, and the girl trembling, equally with grief and apprehension. Then the last advanced to the feet of the condemned man, knelt, bowed her head, and said:

"Grandfather, your blessing on the child of your only son."

"Grandfather!—Son!—and his child!" repeated Don Francesco. "I had a son, to my shame and contrition be it now confessed, but he has long been dead, I never knew that he left a child!"

"This is his daughter, Signore," replied Carlo Giuntotardi; "her mother was my sister. You thought us then too humble to be received into so illustrious a connection, and we have never wished to bring ourselves before your eyes until we thought our presence might be welcome."

"And thou comest now, good man, to claim affinity with a condemned criminal!"

"Not so, grandfather," answered a meek voice at his feet, "it is your son's daughter that craves a blessing from her dying parent. The boon shall be well requited in prayers for your soul!"

"Holy father! I deserve not this! Here has this tender plant lived, neglected in the shade, until it raises its timid head to offer its fragrance in the hour of death! I deserve not this!"

"Son, if heaven offered no mercies until they are merited, hopeless, truly, would be the lot of man. But we must not admit illusions at such a moment. Thou art not a husband, Don Francesco; hadst thou ever a son?"

"That, among other sins, have I long since confessed; and as it has been deeply repented of, I trust it is forgiven. I had a son—a youth who bore my name, even; though he never dwelt in my palace, until a hasty and indiscreet marriage banished him from my presence. I ever intended to pardon him, and to make provision for his wants; but death came too soon to both husband and wife to grant the time. This much I did know, and it grieved me that it was so; but of his child, never before this instant have I heard! 'Tis a sweet countenance, father; it seems the very abode of truth!"