every act of the young man that was any way connected with her; preventing his even feigning that religion which he certainly did not feel, and the want of which was the sole obstacle to the union he had now solicited for near a twelvemonth, and which, of all others, was the object by far the closest to his heart. With Andrea Barrofaldi and Vito Viti, and most especially with the hated English, it was a very different thing, however; and seldom was Raoul happier than when he was employed in precisely such a scene of mystification as that in which he was at that moment engaged.
The vice-governatore having established relations so completely amicable with the “Signor Smees,” could do no less than invite his guest to enter the palazzo, along with himself and the podesta. As it was yet too light for the sailor to seek an interview with Ghita, he cheerfully accepted the offer; making a careful examination of the whole of the northern margin of the sea, from his elevated position, however, before he crossed the threshold. This little delay on Raoul’s part enabled the podesta to have a passing word with his friend unobserved.
“You have found ‘Sir Smees,'” said Vito Viti, with earnestness, “all that your wisdom and prudence could desire, I trust? For my part, I consider him a most interesting youth; one destined at some future time to lead fleets and dispose of the fortunes of nations.”
“He is more amiable and even better informed than I had thought, neighbor Vito Viti. He gives up his Sir Cicero with a grace that causes one regret it was necessary; and, like yourself, I make no doubt of his becoming an illustrious admiral in time. It is true his father, ‘Milordo Smees,’ has not done justice to his education; but it is not too late yet to repair that evil. Go, desire him to enter; for I am impatient to draw his attention to certain works that may be useful to one in his line of life.”
At this suggestion the podesta returned to the door in order to usher the imaginary Guernsey-man into the residence. He found Raoul still standing on the entrance, examining the sea, There were two or three coasters, feluccas, as usual, stealing along the coast, in the Italian fashion, equally afraid of the barbarians of the south shore and of the French of the north. All these would have been good prizes; but, to do the privateersman justice, he was little in the habit of molesting mariners of so low a class. There was one felucca, however, that was just rounding the promontory, coming in from the north; and with the people of this craft he determined to have some communication as soon as he returned to the port, with a view to ascertain if she had fallen in with the frigate. Just as he had come to this resolution, the podesta joined him, and he was ushered into the house.
It is unnecessary to give the discourse which succeeded. It related more to literature and matters in general than to anything connected with our tale, the worthy vice-govenatore being disposed to reward the ingenuousness of the young sailor, by furnishing him as much instruction as the time and circumstances would allow. Raoul bore this very well, waiting patiently for the light to disappear, when he felt a perfect confidence of again meeting Ghita on the promenade. As he had discovered how much more safety there was in diffidence than in pretension, he found his task of deception comparatively easy; and by letting the vice-governatore have his own way, he not only succeeded in gaining that functionary over to a full belief in his assumed nationality, but in persuading him to believe the “Signor Smees” a young man of even more erudition than he had at first supposed. By means as simple and natural as these, Raoul made more progress in the good graces of Andrea Barrofaldi in the next two hours, than he could have done in a year by setting up his own knowledge and reading as authority.
There is little doubt that the vice-governatore found this interview agreeable, from the time he was disposed to waste on it; and, it is certain, Raoul thought it some of the hardest duty in which he had ever been engaged. As for Vito Viti, he was edified, and he did not care to conceal it, giving frequent manifestations of his satisfaction by expressions of delight; occasionally venturing a remark, as if expressly to betray his own ignorance.
“I have often known you great, vice-governatore,” he cried, when Andrea had closed a dissertation on the earlier history of all the northern nations, which lasted fully half an hour, “but never so great as you are to-night! Signore, you have been most illustrious this evening! Is it not so, Signor Smees? Could any professor of Pisa, or even of Papua, do more justice to a subject than we have seen done to this to which we have been listening?”
“Signor Podesta,” added Raoul, “but one feeling has prevailed in my mind while attending to what has been said; and that has been deep regret that my profession has cut me off from all these rich stores of profound thought. But it is permitted us to admire that even which we cannot imitate.”
“Quite true, Signori,” answered Andrea, with gentle benevolence, “but with dispositions like yours, Sir Smees, it is not so very difficult to imitate what we admire. I will write out a list of works which I would recommend to your perusal; and, by touching at Livorno or Napoli, you will obtain all the books at reasonable prices. You may expect to see the list on your breakfast table to-morrow morning, as I shall not sleep until it is completed.”
Raoul gladly seized upon this promise as a hint to depart, and he took his leave with suitable acknowledgments of gratitude and delight. When he got out of the palazzo, however, he gave a long, low whistle, like a man who felt he had escaped from a scene in which persecution had been a little lightened by the ridiculous, and uttered a few curses on the nations of the north, for being so inconsiderate as to have histories so much longer and more elaborate than he conceived to be at all necessary. All this passed as he hastened along the promenade, which he found deserted, every human being having apparently left it. At length he thought he perceived a female form some distance ahead of him and in a part of the walk that was never much frequented. Hastening toward it, his quick eye discerned the person of her he sought, evidently waiting for his approach.
“Raoul,” exclaimed Ghita, reproachfully, “in what will these often repeated risks finally end? When so fairly and cleverly out of the harbor of Porto Ferrajo, why did you not possess the prudence to remain there?”
“Thou know’st the reason, Ghita, and why ask this question? San Nettuno! was it not handsomely done; and is not this brave vice-governatore rarely mystified!–I sometimes think, Ghita, I have mistaken my vocation, which should have been that of a diplomate.”
“And why a diplomate in particular, Raoul–thou art too honest to deceive long, whatever thou may’st do on an occasion like this, and in a pressing emergency.”
“Why?–but no matter. This Andrea Barrofaldi and this Vito Viti will one day know why. And now to our business, Ghita, since le Feu-Follet cannot always decorate the bay of Porto Ferrajo.”
“True,” interrupted the girl, “and I have come for no other purpose than to say as much myself. My dear uncle has arrived, and he intends to sail for the Torri with the first felucca.”
“There!–this has done more to make me believe in a Providence than all the preaching of all the padri of Italy! Here is the lugger to take the place of the felucca, and we can sail this very night. My cabin shall be yours entirely, and with your uncle for a protector no one can raise an evil tongue against the step.”
Ghita, to own the truth, expected this very offer, which, agreeable as it was, her sense of propriety would certainly have prevented her from accepting, but for one consideration: it might be made the means of getting Raoul out of an enemy’s port and, in so much, out of harm’s way. This, with one of her affectionate heart, was an object to which she would have sacrificed appearances of even a graver character. We do not wish the reader, however, to get a false impression of this girl’s habits and education. Although the latter, in many particulars, was superior to that received by most young women of her class in life, the former were simple, and suited to her station, as well as to the usages of her country. She had not been brought up with that severe restraint which regulates the deportment of the young Italian females of condition, perhaps in a degree just as much too severely, as it leaves the young American too little restrained; but she had been taught all that decorum and delicacy required, either for the beautiful or the safe, and her notions inculcated the inexpediency, if not the impropriety, of one in her situation taking a passage in a privateer at all, and particularly so one commanded by an avowed lover. But, on the other hand, the distance between Porto Ferrajo and the Towers was only about fifty miles, and a few hours would suffice to place her in safety beneath her own roof, and, what was of more importance in her view just then, Raoul in safety along with her. On all this had she pondered, and she was consequently prepared with an answer to the proposal that had just been made.
“If my uncle and myself could accept this generous offer, when would it be convenient for you to sail, Raoul?” the girl demanded; “we have now been absent longer than we intended, and longer than we ought.”
“Within an hour, if there were any wind. But you see how it is, Ghita; the zephyr has done blowing, and it now seems as if every fan of Italy had gone to sleep. You can depend on our sailing the instant it shall be in our power. At need, we will use the sweeps.”
“I will then see my uncle and mention to him that there is a vessel about to sail, in which we had better embark. Is it not odd, Raoul, that he is profoundly ignorant of your being in the bay? He gets more and more lost to things around him every day, and I do believe he does not recollect that you command an enemy’s vessel half the time.”
“Let him trust to me; he shall never have occasion to know it, Ghita.”
“We are assured of that, Raoul. The generous manner in which you interposed to save us from the corsair of the Algerines, which began our acquaintance, and for which we shall always have occasion to bless you, has made peace between you and _us_ for ever. But for your timely succor, last summer, my uncle and myself would now have been slaves with barbarians!”
“That is another thing that inclines me to believe in a Providence, Ghita! Little did I know, when rescuing you and your good kinsman from the boat of the Algerine, who I was saving. And yet you see how all has come to pass, and that in serving you I have merely been serving myself.”
“Would thou could’st learn to serve that God who disposes of us all at his holy pleasure!” murmured Ghita, tears forcing themselves to her eyes, and a convulsive effort alone suppressing the deep emotion with which she uttered the words: “but we thank thee again and again, Raoul, as the instrument of his mercy in the affair of the Algerine, and are willing to trust to thee now and always. It will be easy to induce my uncle to embark; but, as he knows thy real character when he chooses to recollect it, I hardly think it will do to say with _whom_. We must arrange an hour and a place to meet, when I will see to his being there and in readiness.”
Raoul and Ghita next discussed the little details; a place of rendezvous without the town, a short distance below the wine-house of Benedetta, being selected, in preference to choosing one that would necessarily subject them to observation. This portion of the arrangements was soon settled, and then Ghita thought it prudent to separate. In this proposal her companion acquiesced with a better grace than he might have done, had he not the girl’s assurance of meeting him within an hour, in order that everything might be ready for a start with the first appearance of wind.
When left alone, Raoul bethought him that Ithuel and Filippo were on shore as usual, the New Hampshire man consenting to serve only on condition of being allowed to land; a privilege he always abused by driving a contraband trade on occasions like the present. So great was the fellow’s dexterity in such matters, that Raoul–who disdained smuggling, while he thought himself compelled to wink at it in others–had less apprehensions of his committing the lugger than he might have felt in the case of one less cunning. But it was now necessary to get these two men off or abandon them; and fortunately remembering the name of the wine-house where they had taken their potations the previous night, he repaired to it without delay, luckily finding Ithuel and his interpreter deep in the discussion of another flask of the favorite Tuscan beverage. ‘Maso and his usual companions were present also, and there being nothing unusual in the commander of an English ship of war’s liking good liquor, Raoul, to prevent suspicion, drew a chair and asked for his glass. By the conversation that followed, the young privateersman felt satisfied that, though he might have succeeded in throwing dust into the eyes of the vice-governatore and the podesta, these experienced old seamen still distrusted his character. It was so unusual a thing for a French frigate, while it was so usual for an English frigate to be standing along the coast, near in, that these mariners, who were familiar with all such matters, had joined this circumstance to the suspicious signs about the lugger, and were strongly disposed to believe the truth concerning both vessels. To all this, however, Raoul was more indifferent than he might have been but for the arrangement to sail so soon. He took his wine, therefore, with apparent indifference, and in proper season withdrew, carrying with him Ithuel and the Genoese.
CHAPTER VIII.
“Within our bay, one stormy night, The isle’s men saw boats make for shore, With here and there a dancing light
That flashed on man and oar.
When hailed, the rowing stopped, and all was dark. Ha! lantern work!–We’ll home! They’re playing shark.”
DANA.
It was dark when Raoul quitted the government-house, leaving Andrea Barrofaldi and Vito Viti in the library of the former. No sooner was the young seaman’s back turned, than the vice-governatore, who was in a humor to display his acquirements, resumed a discussion that he had found so agreeable to his self-esteem.
“It is easy to see, good Vito Viti, that this young Inglese is a gentle of noble birth, though not of a liberal education,” he said; “doubtless his father, Milordo Smees, has a large family, and the usages of England are different from those of Italy, in respect to birthright. There, the eldest son alone inherits the honors of the family, while the cadets are put into the army and navy to earn new distinctions. Nelsoni is the son of a priest, I hear–“
“Cospetto! of a padre! Signor Vice-governatore,” interrupted the podesta–“it is most indecent to _own_ it. A priest must be possessed of the devil himself to _own_ his issue; though issue he may certainly have.”
“There, again, good Vito, it is different with the Luterani and us Catholics. The priests of England, you will please remember, marry, while ours do not.”
“I should not like to be shrived by such a padre! The man would be certain to tell his wife all I confessed; and the saints could only say what would be the end on’t. Porto Ferrajo would soon be too hot to hold an honest man–aye, or even an honest woman in the bargain.”
“But the Luterani do not confess, and are never shrived at all, you will remember.”
“San Stefano!–How do they expect, then, ever to get to heaven?”
“I will not answer that they do, friend Vito–and we are certain that if they _have_ such expectations they must be most treacherous to them. But, talking of this Sir Smees, you perceive in his air and manner the finesse of the Anglo-Saxon race; which is a people altogether distinct from the ancient Gauls, both in history and character. Pietro Giannone, in his _Storia, Civile del Regno di Napoli_, speaks of the Normans, who were a branch of these adventurers, with great interest and particularity; and I think I can trace in this youth some of the very peculiarities that are so admirably delineated in his well-told but too free writings. Well, Pietro; I was not speaking of thee, but of a namesake of thine, of the family of Giannone, an historian of Naples, of note and merit–what is thy will?”
This question was put to a servant, who entered at that moment, holding in his hand a piece of paper, which he desired to lay before his master.
“A cavaliere is without, Signor Andrea, who asks the honor of an audience, and who sends in his name, as your eccellenza will find it on this paper.”
The vice-governatore took the slip of paper and read aloud: “Edward Griffin, tenente della marina Inglesa.”
“Ah! here is an officer sent from ‘ze Ving-y-Ving’ with some communication, friend Vito; it is fortunate you are still here to hear what he has to say. Show the lieutenant in, Pietro.”
One who understood Englishmen better than Andrea Barrofaldi would have been satisfied at a glance that he who now entered was really a native of that country. He was a young man of some two or three and twenty, of a ruddy, round, good-natured face, wearing an undress coat of the service to which he professed to belong, and whose whole air and manner betrayed his profession quite as much as his country. The salutations he uttered were in very respectable Italian, familiarity with the language being the precise reason why he had been selected for the errand on which he had come. After these salutations he put a piece of parchment into Andrea’s hand, remarking:
“If you read English, Signore, you will perceive by that commission I am the person I represent myself to be.”
“Doubtless, Signor Tenente, you belong to ze Ving-y-Ving and are a subordinate of Sir Smees?”
The young man looked surprised and at the same time half disposed to laugh, though a sense of decorum suppressed the latter inclination.
“I belong to His Britannic Majesty’s ship Proserpine, Signore,” he dryly answered, “and know not what you mean by the Ving-y-Ving. Captain Cuffe of that ship, the frigate you saw off your harbor this morning, has sent me down in the felucca that got in this evening to communicate intelligence concerning the lugger which we chased to the southward about nine o’clock, but which, I see, is again snug at her anchor in this bay. Our ship was lying behind Capraya when I left her, but will be here to take me off, and to hear the news, before daylight, should the wind ever blow again.”
Andrea Barrofaldi and Vito Viti stared, and that, too, as if a messenger had come from the lower regions to summon them away for their misdeeds. Lieutenant Griffin spoke unusually good Italian for a foreigner, and his manner of proceeding was so straightforward and direct as to carry with it every appearance of truth.
“You do not know what I mean by ze Ving-y-Ving?” demanded the vice-governatore, with emphasis.
“To be frank with you, I do not, Signore. Ving-y-Ving is not English; nor do I know that it is Italian.”
Mr. Griffin lost a good deal of ground by this assertion, which implied a doubt of Andrea’s knowledge of foreign tongues.
“You say, Signor Tenente, if I comprehend your meaning, that Ving-y-Ving is not English?”
“Indeed I do, sir; at least no English that I have ever heard spoken, at sea or ashore; and we seamen have a language of our own.”
“Will you, then, permit me to ask you what is the translation of _ala e ala_, word for word?”
The lieutenant paused a moment and pondered. Then he laughed involuntarily, checking himself almost immediately with an air of respect and gravity.
“I believe I now understand you, Signor Vice-governatore,” he said; “we have a sea-phrase something like this, to describe a fore-and-aft vessel with her sails swinging off on both sides; but _we_ call it wing-and-wing.”
“Si, Signore–ving-y-ving. Such is the name of the lugger of your king that now lies in our bay.”
“Ah! we thought as much, Signori; the scoundrel has deceived you, as he has done a hundred before you, and will do a hundred again unless we catch him to-night. The lugger is a celebrated French privateer, that we have six cruisers in chase of at this moment, our own ship included. She is called le Feu-Follet, which is not Wing-and-Wing, but Will-o’-the-Wisp, or Jack-o’-Lantern, in English; and which you, in Italian, would call _il Fuoco Fatuo_. Her commander is Raoul Yvard than whom there is not a greater desperado sailing out of France; thought it is admitted that the fellow has some good–nay, some _noble_ qualities.”
At every word uttered by the lieutenant, a page of history was blotted out from the memory of his listener. The vice-governatore had heard the name of Raoul Yvard, and even that of le Feu-Follet, which the malignancy of a bitter war had blackened nearly to the hues of piracy. The thought that he had been the dupe of this corsair–nay, that he had actually been entertaining him with honors and hospitality, within an hour–was almost too much for his philosophy. Men do not often submit to such humiliating sensations without a struggle; and before he would, or could, accord full credence to what was now told him, it was natural to oppose the objections that first offered.
“All this _must_ be a mistake,” observed the vice-governatore; “there are English as well as French luggers; and this is one of the former. Her commander is a noble English gentleman, a son of Milordo Smees; and though his education has been in a trifling degree neglected, he shows his origin and national character in all he says and does. Ze Ving-y-Ving is commanded by Sir Smees, a young officer of merit, as you must have seen yourself, Signore, by his evolutions this very morning. Surely, you have heard of Il Capitano Sir Smees, the son of Milordo Smees!”
“We do not deny that his escape this morning was a clever thing, Vice-governatore, for the fellow is a seaman, every inch of him, and he is as brave as a lion; but, then, he is as impudent as a beggar’s dog. There is no Sir Smees, nor Sir Anybody else, in command of any of our luggers anywhere. In the Mediterranean we have no cruiser of this rig at all; and the two or three we have elsewhere are commanded by old sea-dogs who have been brought up in that sort of craft. As for Sirs, they are scarce out here, though the battle of the Nile has made a few of them for the navy. Then you’ll not meet with a nobleman’s sort in a clipper like this, for that sort of gentry generally go from a frigate’s quarter-deck into a good sloop, as commander, and, after a twelvemonth’s work or so in the small one, into a fast frigate again, as a post-captain.”
Much of this was gibberish to Andrea Barrofaldi, but Griffin being exclusively naval, he fancied every one ought to take the same interest as he did himself in all these matters. But, while the Vice-governatore did not understand more than half of the other’s meaning, that half sufficed to render him exceedingly uneasy. The natural manner of the lieutenant, too, carried conviction with it, while all the original impressions against the lugger were revived by his statements.
“What say you, Signor Vito Viti?” demanded Andrea; “you have been present at the interviews with Sir Smees.”
“That we have been deceived by one of the most oily-tongued rogues that ever took in honest men, if we have been deceived at all, vice-governatore. Last evening I would have believed this; but since the escape and return of the lugger I could have sworn that we had an excellent friend and ally in our bay.”
“You had your signals, Signor Tenente; and that is proof of amity and understanding.”
“We made our number when we saw the lugger with an English ensign set, for we did not suppose a Frenchman would be quietly lying in a Tuscan port; but the answer we got was nonsense; and then we remembered to have heard that this Raoul Yvard was in the habit of playing such tricks all along the Italian coast. Once on the scent, we were not the men to be easily thrown off it. You saw the chase and know the result.”
“There must be some error in all this! Would it not be well, Signore, to see the commander of the lugger–or to go on board of her and satisfy yourself with your own eyes of the truth or falsehood of your surmises? Ten minutes might clear up everything.”
“Your pardon, Signor Vice-governatore; were I to trust myself on board le Feu-Follet, I might remain a prisoner until a peace was made; and I have yet two steps to gain before I can afford that risk. Then as to letting Yvard know of my presence here, it would just give him the alarm, and cause us to lose the bird before we can spring the net. My orders are positive, not to let any one but the authorities of the island know of my visit or its object. All we ask of you is to detain the lugger until morning; then _we_ will see to it that she will never trouble the Italian coast again.”
“Nay, Signore, we have guns of our own and could easily dispose of so small a vessel, once assured of her being an enemy,” returned the vice-governatore, with a little pride and loftiness of manner; “convince us of that fact, and we’ll sink the lugger at her anchors.”
“That is just what we do not wish you to do, Signore,” answered the lieutenant, with interest. “From what passed this morning, Captain Cuffe has thought it probable that Monsieur Yvard, for some reason best known to himself, would come back here as soon as he was rid of us, or that, finding himself on the south side of the island, he might put into Porto Longone; and, had I not met him here, I was to get a horse and ride across to the latter place and make my arrangements there. We wish by all means to get possession of the lugger, which, in smooth water, is the fastest craft in the Mediterranean, and would be of infinite service to us. We think the Proserpine would prove too much for her, blowing fresh; but in moderate weather she will go six feet to our five. Now if you open on her she will either escape or be sunk; for Raoul Yvard is not a man to strike to a town. All I ask is to be permitted to make night-signals, for which I am prepared, as soon as the frigate approaches, and that you will throw all the delays, by means of forms and permits, in the way of the Frenchman’s sailing, until to-morrow morning. We will answer for the rest.”
“I should think there would be but little danger of the lugger’s departing in the night, Signor Tenente, her commander rather expressing an intention of passing several days with us; and it is this ease and confidence of his which cause me to think that he cannot be the person you take him for. Why should Raoul Yvard and le Feu-Follet come into Porto Ferrajo at all?”
“No one knows: it is the man’s habit: and doubtless he has reasons for it. ‘Tis said he has even been in at Gibraltar; and it is certain he has cut several valuable store-ships out of our convoys. There is an Austrian loading with iron, I perceive, in the harbor; probably he is waiting for her to fill up, and finds it easier to watch her at an anchor than by lying outside.”
“You naval gentlemen have ways known only to yourselves; all this may be so, but it seems an enigma to me. Have you any other proofs of your own character, Signor Tenente, than the commission you have shown me? for Sir Smees, as I have been taught to call the commander of the lugger, has one, too, that has an air of as much authenticity as this you have shown; and he wears quite as English-looking a uniform; how am I to judge between you?”
“That difficulty has been foreseen, Signor Vice-governatore, and I come well provided with the necessary proofs. I handed you my commission, as that is a document which, if wanting, might throw a distrust on all other proofs. But here is a communication from your superior at Florence, recommending us to the kindness of the authorities of all the Tuscan ports, which you will readily understand. Captain Cuffe has furnished me with other proofs, which you can look over at your leisure.”
Andrea Barrofaldi now set about a cautious and deliberate examination of the papers shown him. They proved to be of a nature to remove every doubt; and it was not possible to distrust the party that presented them. This was a great deal toward convicting the Signore Smees of imposition, though both the vice-governatore and the podesta were of opinion that Captain Cuffe might yet be mistaken as to the identity of the lugger.
“It is impossible, Signori,” answered the lieutenant; “we know every English cruiser in these seas, by name and description at least, and most of them by sight. This is none; and everything about her, particularly her sailing, betrays her real name. We hear there is a man in her who once belonged to our own ship, a certain Ithuel Bolt–“
“Cospetto!” exclaimed the podesta. “Then we must set down this Sir Smees, after all, for an arrant rogue; for this is the very man we met at Benedetta’s the past night. An Americano, Signor Tenente, is he not?”
“Why, the fellow _pretends_ to be some such thing,” answered the young man, coloring, for he was loath to confess the wrong that had been done the deserter; “but half the British seamen one falls in with nowadays call themselves Americans, in order to escape serving his Majesty. I rather think this rascal is a Cornish or a Devonshire man; he has the twang and the nasal sing-song of that part of the island. If an American, however, we have a better right to him than the French; speaking our language and being descended from a common ancestry and having a common character, it is quite unnatural for an American to serve any but the English.”
“I did not know that, Vice-governatore! I thought the Americani a very inferior sort of people to us Europeans, generally, and that they could scarcely claim to be our equals in any sense.”
“You are quite right, Signor Podesta,” said the lieutenant, briskly; “they are all you think them; and any one can see that at a glance. Degenerate Englishmen, we call them in the service.”
“And yet you take them occasionally, Signor Tenente; and, as I understand from this Ithuello, frequently contrary to their wishes and by force,” dryly observed Andrea Barrofaldi.
“How can we help it, Signore? The king has a right to and he has need of the services of all his own seamen; and, in the hurry of impressing, we sometimes make a mistake. Then, these Yankees are so like our own people, that I would defy the devil himself to tell them apart.”
The vice-governatore thought there was something contradictory in all this, and he subsequently said as much to his friend the podesta; but the matter went no further at the moment, most probably because he ascertained that the young lieutenant was only using what might be termed a national argument; the English Government constantly protesting that it was impossible to distinguish one people from the other, _quoad_ this particular practice; while nothing was more offensive to their eyes, in the abstract, than to maintain any affinity in appearance or characteristics.
The result of the discussion, notwithstanding, was to make the two Italians reluctant converts to the opinion of the Englishman, that the lugger was the dreaded and obnoxious Feu-Follet. Once convinced, however, shame, revenge, and mortification united with duty to quicken their exertions and to render them willing assistants in executing the schemes of Captain Cuffe. It was, perhaps, fortunate for Raoul and his associates that the English officers had so strong a desire, as Griffin expressed it, “to take the lugger alive”; else might she have been destroyed where she lay by removing a gun or two from its proper embrasure and planting them behind some natural ramparts among the rocks. The night was dark, it is true, but not so much so as to render a vessel indistinct at the short distance at which le Feu-Follet lay; and a cannonade would have been abundantly certain.
When all parties were of a mind as to the true character of the little craft in the bay, a consultation was had on the details of the course proper to be pursued. A window of the government-house that looked toward the direction of Capraya, or that in which the Proserpine was expected to arrive, was assigned to Griffin. The young man took his station at it about midnight, in readiness to burn the blue-lights with which he was provided the instant he should discern the signals of his ship. The position of this window was well adapted to the desired object, inasmuch as the lights could not be seen from the town, while they were plainly open to the sea. The same was essentially true as to the signals of the frigate, the heights interposing between her and the houses, and there being a still greater physical impossibility that anything lying in the bay should discover an object at sea on the northern side of the promontory.
In this manner, then, did hour after hour pass away, a light land-breeze blowing, but coming so directly into the bay as to induce Raoul not to lift his kedge. Ghita and her uncle, Carlo Giuntotardi, had come off about ten; but there were still no signs of movement on board the lugger. To own the truth, Raoul was in no hurry to sail, for the longer his departure was protracted the longer would he have the happiness of retaining the lovely girl on board; and the zephyr of the succeeding day would be almost certain to carry le Feu-Follet up to the island-like promontory of Monte Argentaro, the point where stood the watch-towers of which Carlo was the keeper, and in one of which he resided. Under these circumstances, therefore, it is not surprising that the rising of the land-breeze was overlooked, or at least disregarded; and that Raoul sat conversing with Ghita on deck until long past midnight, ere he allowed her to seek her little cabin, where everything had been properly arranged for her reception. To own the truth, Raoul was so confident of having completely mystified all on shore that he felt no apprehensions from that quarter; and, desirous of prolonging his present happiness as much as possible, he had very coolly determined not to sail until the southerly air of the morning should come; which, as usual, would just suffice to carry him well into the canal, when the zephyr would do the rest. Little did this hardy adventurer suspect what had occurred on shore since he quitted it; nor was he at all aware that Tommaso Tonti was at watch in the harbor, ready to report the slightest indication on the part of the lugger of a wish to quit the bay.
But, while Raoul was so indifferent to the danger he ran, the feeling was quite the reverse with Ithuel Bolt. The Proserpine was the bane of this man’s life; and he not only hated every stick and every timber in her, but every officer and man who was attached to her–the king whose colors she wore and the nation whose interest she served. An active hatred is the most restless of all passions; and this feeling made Ithuel keenly alive to every chance which might still render the frigate dangerous to the lugger. He thought it probable the former would return in quest of her enemy; and, expressly with a view to this object, when he turned in at nine he left orders to be called at two, that he might be on the alert in season.
Ithuel was no sooner awaked when he called two trusty men, whom he had prepared for the purpose, entered a light boat that was lying in readiness on the off side of the lugger, and pulled with muffled oars toward the eastern part of the bay. When sufficiently distant from the town to escape observation, he changed his course, and proceeded directly out to sea. Half an hour sufficed to carry the boat as far as Ithuel deemed necessary, leaving him about a mile from the promontory, and so far to the westward as to give him a fair view of the window at which Griffin had taken post.
The first occurrence out of the ordinary course of things that struck the American was the strong light of a lamp shining through an upper window of the government-house–not that at which the lieutenant was posted, but one above it–and which had been placed there expressly as an indication to the frigate that Griffin had arrived, and was actively on duty. It was now two o’clock, or an hour or two before the appearance of light, and the breeze off the adjoining continent was sufficiently strong to force a good sailing vessel, whose canvas had been thickened by the damps of night, some four knots through the water; and as Capraya was less than thirty miles from Porto Ferrajo, abundant time had been give to the Proserpine to gain her offing; that ship having come from behind her cover, as soon as the sun had set, and the haze of evening settled upon the sea.
Ithuel, usually so loquacious and gossiping in his moments of leisure, was silent and observant when he had anything serious on hand. His eye was still on the window in which the lamp was visible, the pure olive oil that was burning in it throwing out a clear, strong flame; when suddenly a blue-light flashed beneath the place, and he got a momentary glimpse of the body of the man who held it, as he leaned forward from another window. The motion which now turned his head seaward was instinctive; it was just in time to let him detect a light descending apparently into the water like a falling star; but which, in fact, was merely a signal lantern of the Proserpine coming rapidly down from the end of her gaff.
“Ah! d–n you,” said Ithuel, grating his teeth and shaking his fist in the direction of the spot where this transient gleam of brightness had disappeared–“I know you, and your old tricks with your lanterns and night-signals. Here goes the answer.”
As he said this he touched a rocket, of which he had several in the boat, with the lighted end of the cigar he had been smoking, and it went hissing up into the air, ascending so high as to be plainly visible from the deck of le Feu-Follet before it exploded. Griffin saw this signal with wonder; the frigate noted it with embarrassment, for it was far to seaward of the lamp; and even ‘Maso conceived it necessary to quit his station in order to report the circumstance to the colonel, whom he was to call in the event of any unusual occurrence. The common impression, however, among all these parties was that a second cruiser had come through the canal from the southward in the course of the night, and that she wished to notify the Proserpine of her position, probably expecting to meet that ship off the island.
On board le Feu-Follet the effect was different. The. land-breeze of Italy is a side-wind to vessels quitting the bay of Porto Ferrajo; and two minutes after the rocket exploded the lugger-was gliding almost imperceptibly, and yet at the rate of a knot or two, under her jigger and jib, toward the outer side of the port, or along the very buildings past which she had brushed the previous day. This movement was made at the critical instant when ‘Maso was off his watch; and the ordinary sentinels of the works had other duties to attend to. So light was this little vessel that a breath of air set her in motion, and nothing was easier than to get three or four knots out of her in smooth water, especially when she opened the comparatively vast folds of her two principal lugs. This she did when close under the citadel or out of sight of the town, the sentinels above hearing the flaps of her canvas, without exactly understanding whence they came. At this instant Ithuel let off a second rocket, and the lugger showed a light on her starboard bow, so concealed, however, on all sides but one, as to be visible only in the direction of the boat. As this was done she put her helm hard down and hauled her fore-sheet over flat to windward. Five minutes later Ithuel had reached her deck, and the boat was hauled in as if it had been inflated silk, Deceived by the second rocket, the Proserpine now made her number with regular signal lanterns, with the intention of obtaining that of the stranger, trusting that the promontory would conceal it from the vessels in the bay. This told Raoul the precise position of his enemy, and he was not sorry to see that he was already to the westward of her; a fact that permitted him to slip round the island again, so near in as to be complete concealed by the background of cliffs. By the aid of an excellent night-glass, too, he was enabled to see the frigate, distant about a league, under everything that would draw, from her royals down, standing toward the mouth of the bay on the larboard tack; having made her calculations so accurately as to drop into windward of her port, with the customary breeze off the land. At this sight Raoul laughed and ordered the mainsail taken in. Half an hour later he directed the foresail to be brailed, brought his jigger-sheet in flat, put his helm hard down, and hauled the jib-sheet to windward.
As this last order was executed, day was just breaking over the mountains of Radicofani and Aquapendente. By this time le Feu-Follet lay about a league to the westward of the promontory, and abreast of the deep bay that has been already mentioned as being in that direction from the town. Of course she was far beyond the danger of missiles from the land. The night wind, however, had now failed, and there was every appearance that the morning would be calm. In this there was nothing extraordinary at that season; the winds which prevailed from the south being usually short and light, unless accompanied by a gust. Just as the sun appeared the south air came, it is true, but so lightly as to render it barely possible to keep the little lugger in command, by heaving-to with her head to the southwest.
The Proserpine stood in until the day had advanced far enough to enable her lookouts to detect le Feu-Follet braving her, as it might be, in the western board, at the distance of about a league and a half, under her jib and jigger, as described. This sight produced a great commotion in the ship, even the watch below “tumbling up,” to get another sight of a craft so renowned for evading the pursuit of all the English cruisers of those seas. A few minutes later Griffin came off, chopfallen and disappointed. His first glance at the countenance of his superior announced a coming storm; for the commander of a vessel of war is no more apt to be reasonable under disappointment than any other potentate. Captain Cuffe had not seen fit to wait for his subordinate on deck; but as soon as it was ascertained that he was coming off in a shore-boat, he retired to his cabin, leaving orders with the first lieutenant, whose name was Winchester, to send Mr. Griffin below the instant he reported himself.
“Well, sir,” commenced Cuffe, as soon as his lieutenant came into the after-cabin, without offering him a seat–“here _we_ are; and out yonder two or three leagues at sea is the d–d Few-Folly!” for so most of the seamen of the English service pronounced “Feu-Follet.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain Cuffe,” answered Griffin, who found himself compelled to appear a delinquent, whatever might be the injustice of the stiuation; “it could not be helped. We got in in proper time; and I went to work with the deputy-governor and an old chap of a magistrate who was with him, as soon as I could get up to the house of the first. Yvard had been beforehand with me: and I had to under-run about a hundred of his lying yarns before I could even enter the end of an idea of my own–“
“You speak Italian, sir, like a Neapolitan born; and I depended on your doing everything as it should have been.”
“Not so much like a Neapolitan, I hope, Captain Cuffe, as like a Tuscan or a Roman,” returned Griffin, biting his lip. “After an hour of pretty hard and lawyer-like work, and overhauling all the documents, I did succeed in convincing the two Elban gentry of my own character, and of that of the lugger!”
“And while you were playing advocate, Master Raoul Yvard coolly lifted his anchor and walked out of the bay as if he were just stepping into his garden to pick a nosegay for his sweetheart!”
“No, sir, nothing of the sort happened. As soon as I had satisfied the Signor Barrofaldi, the vice-governatore–“
“Veechy-govern-the-tory. D–n all veechys, and d–n all the governatorys, too; do speak English, Griffin, on board an English ship, if you please, even should your Italian happen to be Tuscan. Call the fellow vice-governor at once, if that be his rank.”
“Well, sir, as soon as I had satisfied the vice-governor that the lugger was an enemy, and that we were friends, everything went: smoothly enough. He wanted to sink the lugger as she lay at her anchor.”
“And why the devil didn’t he do it? Two or three heavy shot would have given her a stronger dose than she could bear.”
“You know, Captain Cuffe, it has all along been your wish to take her alive. I thought it would tell so well for the ship to have it to say she had _caught_ le Feu-Follet, that I opposed the project. I know Mr. Winchester hopes to get her as a reward for carrying her, himself.”
“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 _Eye_talians) 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