University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

What success attended the artifice of Ithuel, it was impossible
to tell, so far as the frigate was concerned; though
the appearance of mutual intelligence between the two vessels,
had a very favourable tendency towards removing
suspicion from the lugger, among those on shore. It seemed
so utterly improbable that a French corsair could answer
the signals of an English frigate, that even Vito Viti felt
compelled to acknowledge to the vice-governatore, in a
whisper, that, so far, the circumstance was much in favour
of the lugger's loyalty. Then the calm exterior of Raoul
counted for something, more especially as he remained,
apparently, an unconcerned observer of the rapid approach
of the ship.

“We shall not have occasion to use your gallant offer,
Signor Smees,” said Andrea, kindly, as he was about to

retire into the house, with one or two of his counsellors;
“but we thank you none the less. It is a happiness to be
honoured with the visit of two cruisers of your great nation
on the same day, and I hope you will so far favour me as to
accompany your brother commander, when he shall do me
the honour to pay the customary visit, since it would seem
to be his serious intention to pay Porto Ferrajo the compliment
of a call. Can you not guess at the name of the
frigate?”

“Now I see she is a countryman, I think I can, Signore,”
answered Raoul, carelessly; “I take her to be la Proserpine,
a French-built ship, a circumstance that first deceived
me as to her character.”

“And the noble cavaliere, her commander—you doubtless
know his name and rank?”

“Oh! perfectly; he is the son of an old admiral, under
whom I was educated, though we happen ourselves never to
have met. Sir Brown is the name and title of the gentleman.”

“Ah! that is a truly English rank, and name, too, as
one might say. Often have I met that honourable appellation
in Shakspeare, and other of your eminent authors.
Miltoni has a Sir Brown, if I am not mistaken, Signore?”

“Several of them, Signor Vice-governatore,” answered
Raoul, without a moment's hesitation or the smallest remorse;
though he had no idea whatever who Milton was;
“Milton, Shakspeare, Cicero, and all our great writers,
often mention Signori of this family.”

“Cicero!” repeated Andrea, in astonishment—“he was
a Roman, and an ancient, Capitano, and died before Inghilterra
was known to the civilized world.”

Raoul perceived that he had reached too far, though he
was not in absolute danger of losing his balance. Smiling,
as in consideration of the other's provincial view of things,
he rejoined, with an à-plomb that would have done credit to
a politician, in an explanatory and half-apologetic tone.

“Quite true, Signor Vice-governatore, as respects him
you mention,” he said; “but not true as respects Sir Cicero,
my illustrious compatriot. Let me see—I do not think it is
yet a century since our Cicero died. He was born in
Devonshire”—this was the county in which Raoul had been

imprisoned — “and must have died in Dublin. Si — now I
remember, it was in Dublin that this virtuous and distinguished
author yielded up his breath.”

To all this Andrea had nothing to say, for, half a century
since, so great was the ignorance of civilized nations, as
related to such things, that one might have engrafted a
Homer on the literature of England, in particular, without
much risk of having the imposition detected. Signor Barrofaldi
was not pleased to find that the barbarians were seizing
on the Italian names, it is true; but he was fain to set the
circumstance down to those very traces of barbarism, which
were the unavoidable fruits of their origin. As for supposing
it possible that one who spoke with the ease and innocence
of Raoul, was inventing as he went along, it was an idea
he was himself much too unpractised to entertain; and the
very first thing he did, on entering the palace, was to make
a memorandum which might lead him, at a leisure moment,
to inquire into the nature of the writings, and the general
merits of Sir Cicero, the illustrious namesake of him of
Rome. As soon as this little digression terminated, he
entered the palace, after again expressing the hope that
“Sir Smees” would not fail to accompany “Sir Brown,” in
the visit which the functionary fully expected to receive from
the latter, in the course of the next hour or two. The company
now began to disperse, and Raoul was soon left to his
own meditations; which, just at that moment, were anything
but agreeable.

The town of Porto Ferrajo is so shut in from the sea by
the rock against which it is built, its fortifications, and the
construction of its own little port, as to render the approach
of a vessel invisible to its inhabitants, unless they choose to
ascend to the heights, and the narrow promenade already
mentioned. This circumstance had drawn a large crowd
upon the hill, again; among which Raoul Yvard now
threaded his way, wearing his sea cap, and his assumed
naval uniform, in a smart, affected manner, for he was fully
sensible of all the advantages he possessed on the score of
personal appearance. His unsettled eye, however, wandered
from one pretty face to another, in quest of Ghita, who alone
was the object of his search, and the true cause of the awkward
predicament in which he had brought not only himself,

but le Feu-Follet. In this manner, now thinking of her he
sought, and then reverting to his situation in an enemy's
port, he walked along the whole line of the cliff, scarce
knowing whether to return, or to seek his boat, by doubling
on the town, when he heard his own name pronounced in
a sweet voice, which went directly to his heart. Turning
on his heel, Ghita was within a few feet of him.

“Salute me distantly, and as a stranger,” said the girl, in
almost breathless haste, “and point to the different streets,
as if inquiring your way through the town. This is the
place where we met last evening; but, remember, it is no
longer dark.”

As Raoul complied with her desire, any distant spectator
might well have fancied the meeting accidental, though he
poured forth a flood of expressions of love and admiration.

“Enough, Raoul,” said the girl blushing, and dropping
her eyes, though no displeasure was visible on her serene
and placid face, “another time I might indulge you. How
much worse is your situation now, than it was last night!
Then you had only the port to fear; now you have both the
people of the port and this strange ship—an Inglese, as they
tell me?”

“No doubt—la Proserpine, Etooell says, and he knows;
you remember Etooell, dearest Ghita, the American who
was with me at the tower—well, he has served in this very
ship, and knows her to be la Proserpine, of forty-four.”
Raoul paused a moment; then he added, laughing in a way
to surprise his companion—“Oui—la Proserpine, le Capitaine
Sir Brown!”

“What you can find to amuse you in all this, Raoul, is
more than I can discover. Sir Brown, or sir any-body-else,
will send you again to those evil English prison-ships, of
which you have so often told me; and there is surely nothing
pleasant in that idea.”

“Bah! my sweet Ghita, Sir Brown, or Sir White, or Sir
Black, has not yet got me. I am not a child, to tumble
into the fire because the leading-strings are off; and le Feu-Follet
shines, or goes out, exactly as it suits her purposes.
The frigate, ten to one, will just run close in, and take a
near look, and then square away and go to Livorno, where
there is much more to amuse her officers, than here, in Porto

Ferrajo. This Sir Brown has his Ghita, as well as Raoul
Yvard.”

“No, not a Ghita, I fear, Raoul,” answered the girl
smiling, spite of herself, while her colour almost insensibly
deepend — “Livorno has few ignorant country girls, like
me, who have been educated in a lone watch-tower on the
coast.”

“Ghita,” answered Raoul, with feeling, “that poor lone
watch-tower of thine, might well be envied by many a noble
dame at Roma and at Napoli; for it has left thee innocent
and pure — a gem that gay capitals seldom contain; or, if
found there, not in its native beauty, which they sully by
use.”

“What know'st thou, Raoul, of Roma and Napoli, and
of noble dames and rich gems?” asked the girl, smiling,
the tenderness which had filled her heart at that moment
betraying itself in her eyes.

“What do I know of such things, truly! why, I have
been at both places, and have seen what I describe. I went
to Roma on purpose to see the Holy Father, in order to
make certain whether our French opinions of his character
and infallibility were true, or not, before I set up in religion
for myself.”

“And thou didst find him holy and venerable, Raoul,”
interposed the girl, with earnestness and energy, for this
was the great point of separation between them — “I know
thou found'st him thus, and worthy to be the head of an
ancient and true church. My eyes never beheld him; but
this do I know to be true.”

Raoul was aware that the laxity of his religious opinions,
opinions that he may be said to have inherited from his
country, as it then existed morally, alone prevented Ghita
from casting aside all other ties, and following his fortunes,
in weal and in woe. Still he was too frank and generous
to deceive, while he had ever been too considerate to strive
to unsettle her confiding and consoling faith. Her infirmity
even, for so he deemed her notions to be, had a charm in
his eyes; few men, however loose or sceptical in their own
opinions on such matters, finding any pleasure in the contemplation
of a female infidel; and he had never looked
more fondly into her anxious but lovely face, than he did at

this very instant, making his reply with a truth that bordered
on magnanimity.

“Thou art my religion, Ghita!” he said; “in thee I
worship purity, and holiness, and—”

“Nay — nay, Raoul, do not — refrain — if thou really
lov'st me, utter not this frightful blasphemy; tell me, rather,
if thou didst not find the holy father, as I describe him?”

“I found him a peaceful, venerable, and, I firmly believe,
a good old man, Ghita; but only a man. No infallibility
could I see about him; but a set of roguish cardinals, and
other plotters of mischief, who were much better calculated
to set Christians by the ears, than to lead them to Heaven,
surrounded his chair.”

“Say no more, Raoul — I will listen to no more of this.
Thou knowest not these sainted men, and thy tongue is
thine own enemy, without — hark! what means that?”

“'T is a gun from the frigate, and must be looked to; say,
when and where do we meet again?”

“I know not, now. We have been too long, much too
long, together, as it is; and must separate. Trust to me to
provide the means of another meeting; at all events, we
shall shortly be in our tower, again.”

Ghita glided away as she ceased speaking, and soon disappeared
in the town. As for Raoul, he was at a loss, for
a moment, whether to follow or not; then he hastened to
the terrace, in front of the government-house, again, in order
to ascertain the meaning of the gun. The report had drawn
others to the same place, and on reaching it, the young man
found himself in another crowd.

By this time the Proserpine, for Ithuel was right as to the
name of the stranger, had got within a league of the entrance
of the bay, and had gone about, stretching over to its eastern
shore, apparently with the intention to fetch fairly into it,
on the next tack. The smoke of her gun was sailing off to
leeward, in a little cloud, and signals were again flying at
her main-royal-mast-head. All this was very intelligible to
Raoul, it being evident, at a glance, that the frigate had
reached in nearer both to look at the warlike lugger that
she saw in the bay, and to communicate more clearly with
her by signals. Ithuel's expedient had not sufficed; the
vigilant Captain Cuffe, alias Sir Brown, who commanded

the Proserpine, not being a man likely to be mystified by so
stale a trick. Raoul scarcely breathed, as he watched the
lugger, in anticipation of her course.

Ithuel certainly seemed in no hurry to commit himself,
for the signal had now been flying on board the frigate
several minutes, and yet no symptoms of any preparation
for an answer could be discovered. At length the halyards
moved, and then three fair, handsome flags rose to the end
of le Feu-Follet's jigger-yard, a spar that was always kept
aloft, in moderate weather. What the signal meant Raoul
did not know, for though he was provided with signals by
means of which to communicate with the vessels of war of
his own nation, the Directory had not been able to supply
him with those necessary to communicate with the enemy.
Ithuel's ingenuity, however, had supplied the deficiency.
While serving on board the Proserpine, the very ship that
was now menacing the lugger, he had seen a meeting between
her and a privateer English lugger, one of the two or
three of that rig which sailed out of England, and his observant
eye had noted the flags she had shown on the occasion.
Now as privateersmen are not expected to be expert, or even
very accurate, in the use of signals, he had ventured to
show these very numbers, let it prove for better or worse.
Had he been on the quarter-deck of the frigate, he would have
ascertained through the benedictions bestowed by Captain
Cuffe, that his ruse had so far succeeded as to cause that
officer to attribute his unintelligible answer to ignorance,
rather than to design. Nevertheless, the frigate did not
seem disposed to alter her course; for, either influenced by
a desire to anchor, or by a determination to take a still
closer look at the lugger, she stood on, nearing the eastern
side of the bay, at the rate of some six miles to the hour.

Raoul Yvard now thought it time to look to the safety of
le Feu-Follet, in person. Previously to landing, he had
given instructions as to what was to be done, in the event
of the frigate's coming close in; but matters now seemed so
very serious, that he hurried down the hill, overtaking Vito
Viti, in his way, who was repairing to the harbour to give
instructions to certain boatmen concerning the manner in
which the quarantine laws were to be regarded, in an intercourse
with a British frigate.

“You ought to be infinitely happy, at the prospect of
meeting an honourable countryman, in this Sir Brown,”
observed the short-winded podestâ, who usually put himself
out of breath, both in ascending and descending the steep
street, “for he really seems determined to anchor in our
bay, Signor Smees.”

“To tell you the truth, Signor Podesta, I wish I was half
as well persuaded that it is Sir Brown, and la Proserpine,
as I was an hour ago. I see symptoms of its being a republican,
after all, and must have a care for ze Ving-And-Ving.”

“The devil carry away all republicans, is my humble
prayer, Signor Capitano; but I can hardly believe that so
graceful and gracious-looking a frigate can possibly belong
to such wretches.”

“Ah! Signore, if that were all, I fear we should have to
yield the palm to the French,” answered Raoul, laughing;
“for the best-looking craft in His Majesty's service are
republican prizes. Even should this frigate turn out to be
the Proserpine, herself, she can claim no better origin. But,
I think the vice-governatore has not done well in deserting
the batteries, since this stranger does not answer our signals
as she should. The last communication has proved quite
unintelligible to him.”

Raoul was nearer to the truth than he imagined, perhaps,
for certainly Ithuel's numbers had made nonsense, according
to the signal-book of the Proserpine; but his confident manner
had an effect on Vito Viti, who was duped by his seeming
earnestness, as well as by a circumstance, which, rightly
considered, told as much against, as it did in favour of his
companion.

“And what is to be done, Signore?” demanded the podestâ,
stopping short in the street.

“We must do as well as we can, under the circumstances.
My duty is to look out for ze Ving-And-Ving, and yours to
look out for the town. Should the stranger actually enter
the bay, and bring his broadside to bear on this steep hill,
there is not a chamber-window that will not open on the
muzzles of his guns. You will grant me permission to haul
into the inner harbour, where we shall be sheltered by the
buildings from his shot, and then, perhaps, it will be well

enough to send my people into the nearest battery. I look
for bloodshed and confusion, ere long.”

All this was said with so much apparent sincerity, that it
added to the podestâ's mystification. Calling a neighbour
to him, he sent the latter up the hill, with a message to
Andrea Barrofaldi, and then he hurried down towards the
port, it being much easier for him, just at that moment, to
ascend, than to descend. Raoul kept at his side, and together
they reached the water's edge.

The podestâ was greatly addicted to giving utterance to
any predominant opinion of the moment, being one of those
persons who feel quite as much as they think. On the
present occasion, he did not spare the frigate, for, having
caught at the bait that his companion had so artfully thrown
out to him, he was loud in the expression of his distrust.
All the signalling and showing of colours, he now believed
to be a republican trick; and precisely in proportion as he
became resentful of the supposed fraud of the ship, was he
disposed to confide blindly in the honesty of the lugger.
This was a change of sentiment in the magistrate; and, as
in the case of all sudden but late conversions, he was in a
humour to compensate for his tardiness, by the excess of his
zeal. In consequence of this disposition, the character and
loquacity of the man, all aided by a few timely suggestions
on the part of Raoul, in five minutes it came to be generally
understood that the frigate was greatly to be distrusted, while
the lugger was to rise in public favour exactly in the degree
in which the other fell. This interposition of Vito Viti's
was exceedingly à propos, so far as le Feu-Follet and her
people were concerned, inasmuch as the examination of,
and intercourse with, the boat's crew, had rather left the
impression of their want of nationality, in a legal sense, than
otherwise. In a word, had not the podestâ so loudly and
so actively proclaimed the contrary, Tommaso and his fellows
were about to report their convictions that these men
were all bonâ fide wolves in sheep's clothing—alias, Frenchmen.

“No, no—amici miei,” said Vito Viti, bustling about on
the narrow little quay, “all is not gold that glitters, of a
certainty; and this frigate is probably no ally, but an enemy.
A very different matter is it with ze Ving-y-Ving, and Il

Signor Smees — we may be said to know him — have seen
his papers, and the vice-governatore and myself have examined
him, as it might be, on the history and laws of his
island, for England is an island, neighbours, as well as Elba;
another reason for respect and amity — but we have gone
over much of the literature and history of Inghilterra together,
and find everything satisfactory and right; therefore
are we bound to show the lugger protection and love.”

“Most true, Signor Podestâ,” answered Raoul, from his
boat; “and such being the case, I hasten to haul my vessel
into the mouth of your basin, which I will defend against
boats, or any attempt of these rascally republicans to land.”

Waving his hand, the young sailor pulled quickly out of
the crowded little port, followed by a hundred vivas. Raoul
now saw that his orders had not been neglected. A small
line had been run out from the lugger, and fastened to a
ring in the inner end of the eastern side of the narrow haven,
apparently with the intention of hauling the vessel into the
harbour itself. He also perceived that the light anchor, or
large kedge, by which le Feu-Follet rode, was under foot, as
seamen term it; or that the cable was nearly “up and down.”
With a wave of the hand he communicated a new order,
and then he saw that the men were raising the kedge from
the bottom. By the time his foot touched the deck, indeed,
the anchor was up and stowed, and nothing held the vessel
but the line that had been run to the quay. Fifty pairs of
hands were applied to this line, and the lugger advanced
rapidly towards her place of shelter. But an artifice was
practised to prevent her heading into the harbour's mouth,
the line having been brought inboard abaft her larboard cat-head,
a circumstance which necessarily gave her a sheer in
the contrary direction, or to the eastward of the entrance.
When the reader remembers that the scale on which the
port had been constructed was small, the entrance scarce
exceeding a hundred feet in width, he will better understand
the situation of things. Seemingly to aid the movement, too,
the jigger was set, and the wind being south, or directly aft,
the lugger's motion was soon light and rapid. As the vessel
drew nearer to the entrance, her people made a run with
the line, and gave her a movement of some three or four
knots to the hour, actually threatening to dash her bows

against the pier-head. But Raoul Yvard contemplated no
such blunder. At the proper moment, the line was cut, the
helm was put a-port, the lugger's head sheered to starboard,
and just as Vito Viti, who witnessed all without comprehending
more than half that passed, was shouting his vivas,
and animating all near him with his cries, the lugger glided
past the end of the harbour, on its outside, however, instead
of entering it. So completely was every one taken by surprise,
by this evolution, that the first impression was of some
mistake, accident, or blunder of the helmsman, and cries of
regret followed, lest the frigate might have it in her power
to profit by the mishap. The flapping of canvass, notwithstanding,
showed that no time was lost, and presently le
Feu-Follet shot by an opening between the warehouses,
under all sail. At this critical instant, the frigate, which
saw what passed, but which had been deceived, like all the
rest, and supposed the lugger was hauling into the haven,
tacked and came round with her head to the westward.
But, intending to fetch well into the bay, she had stretched
so far over towards the eastern shore, as, by this time, to be
quite two miles distant; and as the lugger rounded the promontory
close under its rocks, to avoid the shot of the batteries
above, she left, in less than five minutes, her enemy
that space directly astern. Nor was this all. It would
have been dangerous to fire, as well as useless, on account
of the range, since the lugger lay nearly in a line between
her enemy's chase guns and the residence of the vice-governatore.
It only remained, therefore, for the frigate to commence
what is proverbially “a long chase,” viz. a “stern
chase.”

All that has just been related may have occupied ten
minutes; but the news reached Andrea Barrofaldi, and his
counsellors, soon enough to allow them to appear on the
promontory in time to see the Ving-y-Ving pass close under
the cliffs beneath them, still keeping her English colours
flying. Raoul was visible, trumpet in hand; but as the wind
was light, his powerful voice sufficed to tell his story.

“Signori,” he shouted, “I will lead the rascally republican
away from your port, in chase; that will be the most
effectual mode of doing you a service.”

These words were heard, and understood, and a murmur

of applause followed, from some, while others thought the
whole affair mysterious and questionable. There was no
time to interpose, by acts, had such a course been contemplated,
the lugger keeping too close in to be exposed to shot,
and there being, as yet, no new preparations in the batteries,
to meet an enemy. Then there were the doubts as to the
proper party to assail, and all passed too rapidly to admit
of consultation or preconcert. The movement of le Feu-Follet
was so easy, as to partake of the character of instinct.
Her light sails were fully distended, though the breeze was
far from fresh; and, as she rose and fell on the long ground-swells,
her wedge-like bows caused the water to ripple before
them like a swift current meeting a sharp obstacle in the
stream. It was only as she sunk into the water, in stemming
a swell, that anything like foam could be seen under
her fore-foot. A long line of swift-receding bubbles, however,
marked her track, and she no sooner came abreast of
any given group of spectators, than she was past it—resembling
the progress of a porpoise, as he sports along a harbour.

Ten minutes after passing the palace, or the pitch of the
promontory, the lugger opened another bay, one wider and
almost as deep as that on which Porto Ferrajo stands, and
here she took the breeze without the intervention of any
neighbouring rocks, and her speed was essentially increased.
Hitherto, her close proximity to the shore had partially becalmed
her, though the air had drawn round the promontory,
making nearly a fair wind of it; but, now, the currents
came fully on her beam, and with much more power. She
hauled down her tacks, flattened in her sheets, luffed, and
was soon out of sight, breasting up to windward of a point
that formed the eastern extremity of the bay last mentioned.

All this time the Proserpine had not been idle. As soon
as she discovered that the lugger was endeavouring to
escape, her rigging was alive with men. Sail after sail was
set, one white cloud succeeding another, until she was a
sheet of canvass, from her trucks to her bulwarks. Her
lofty sails taking the breeze above the adjacent coast, her
progress was swift, for this particular frigate had the reputation
of being one of the fastest vessels in the English
marine.

It was just twenty minutes, by Andrea Barrofaldi's watch,
after le Feu-Follet passed the spot where he stood, when the
Proserpine came abreast of it. Her greater draught of water
induced her to keep half a mile from the promontory, but
she was so near as to allow a very good opportunity to examine
her general construction and appearance, as she went
by. The batteries were now manned, and a consultation
was held on the propriety of punishing a republican for
daring to come so near a Tuscan port. But there flew the
respected and dreaded English ensign; and it was still a
matter of doubt whether the stranger were friend or enemy.
Nothing about the ship showed apprehension, and yet she
was clearly chasing a craft which, coming from a Tuscan
harbour, an Englishman would be bound to consider entitled
to his protection, rather than to his hostility. In a word,
opinions were divided, and when that is the case, in matters
of this nature, decision is obviously difficult. Then, if a
Frenchman, she clearly attempted no injury to any on the
island; and those who possessed the power to commence a
fire were fully aware how much the town lay exposed, and
how little benefit might be expected from even a single
broadside. The consequence was, that the few who were
disposed to open on the frigate, like the two or three who
had felt the same disposition towards the lugger, were restrained
in their wishes, not only by the voice of superior
authority, but by that of numbers.

In the meanwhile the Proserpine pressed on, and in ten
minutes more she was not only out of the range, but beyond
the reach of shot. As she opened the bay west of the town,
le Feu-Follet was seen from her decks, fully a league ahead,
close on a wind, the breeze hauling round the western end
of the island, glancing through the water at a rate that rendered
pursuit more than doubtful. Still the ship persevered,
and in little more than an hour from the time she had
crowded sail, she was up with the western extremity of the
hills, though more than a mile to leeward. Here she met
the fair southern breeze, uninfluenced by the land, as it
came through the pass between Corsica and Elba, and got
a clear view of the work before her. The studding-sails
and royals had been taken in, twenty minutes earlier; the
bowlines were now all hauled, and the frigate was brought

close upon the wind. Still the chase was evidently hopeless,
the little Feu-Follet having everything as much to her
mind, as if she had ordered the weather expressly to show
her powers. With her sheets flattened in until her canvass
stood like boards, her head looked fully a point to windward
of that of the ship, and, what was of equal importance, she
even went to windward of the point she looked at, while the
Proserpine, if anything, fell off a little, though but a very
little, from her own course. Under all these differences,
the lugger went through the water six feet to the frigate's
five, beating her in speed almost as much as she did in her
weatherly qualities.

The vessel to windward was not the first lugger, by fifty,
that Captain Cuffe had assisted in chasing, and he knew the
hopelessness of following such a craft, under circumstances
so directly adapted to its qualities. Then he-was far from
certain that he was pursuing an enemy at all, whatever
distrust the signals may have excited, since she had clearly
come out of a friendly port. Bastia, too, lay within a few
hours' run, and there was the whole of the east coast of
Corsica, abounding with small bays and havens, in which a
vessel of that size might take refuge, if pressed. After convincing
himself, therefore, by half-an-hour's further trial in
open sailing under the full force of the breeze, of the fruitlessness
of his effort, that experienced officer ordered the
Proserpine's helm put up, the yards squared, and he stood
to the northward, apparently shaping his course for Leghorn,
or the Gulf of Genoa. When the frigate made this change
in her course, the lugger, which had tacked some time previously,
was just becoming shut in by the western end of
Elba, and she was soon lost to view entirely, with every
prospect of her weathering the island altogether, without
being obliged to go about again.

It was no more than natural that such a chase should
occasion some animation in a place as retired, and ordinarily
as dull, as Porto Ferrajo. Several of the young idlers of the
garrison obtained horses, and galloped up among the hills,
to watch the result; the mountains being pretty well intersected
by bridle-paths, though totally without regular roads.
They who remained in the town, as a matter of course, were
not disposed to let so favourable a subject for discourse die

away immediately, for want of a disposition to gossip on
it. Little else was talked of, that day, than the menaced
attack of the republican frigate, and the escape of the lugger.
Some, indeed, still doubted, for every question has its two
sides, and there was just enough of dissent to render the
discussions lively, and the arguments ingenious. Among
the disputants, Vito Viti acted a prominent part. Having
committed himself so openly by his “vivas,” and his public
remarks in the port, he felt it due to his own character to
justify all he had said, and Raoul Yvard could not have
desired a warmer advocate than he now had in the podestâ.
The worthy magistrate exaggerated the vice-governatore's
knowledge of English, by way of leaving no deficiency in
the necessary proofs of the lugger's national character. Nay,
he even went so far as to affirm that he had comprehended
a portion of the documents exhibited by the “Signor Smees,”
himself; and as to “ze Ving-y-Ving,” any one acquainted in
the least with the geography of the British Channel, would
understand that she was precisely the sort of craft that the
semi-Gallic inhabitants of Guernsey and Jersey would be apt
to send forth to cruise against the altogether Gallic inhabitants
of the adjacent main.

During all these discussions, there was one heart in Porto
Ferrajo that was swelling with the conflicting emotions of
gratitude, disappointment, joy and fear, though the tongue
of its owner was silent. Of all of her sex in the place, Ghita
alone had nothing to conjecture, no speculation to advance,
no opinion to maintain, nor any wish to express. Still she
listened eagerly, and it was not the least of her causes of
satisfaction to find that her own hurried interviews with the
handsome privateersman, had apparently escaped observation.
At length her mind was fully lightened of its apprehensions,
leaving nothing but tender regrets, by the return
of the horsemen from the mountains. These persons reported
that the upper sails of the frigate were just visible in
the northern board, so far as they could judge even more
distant than the island of Capraya, while the lugger had
beaten up almost as far to windward as Pianosa, and then
seemed disposed to stand over towards the coast of Corsica;
doubtless with an intention to molest the commerce of that
hostile island.