"Are all prepared?
They are--nay more--embarked; the latest boat
Waits but my chief--My sword and my capote."
_The Corsair._
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 favorable tendency
toward 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 favor 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 honored with the visit of two cruisers of your great
nation on the same day, and I hope you will so far favor me as to
accompany your brother commander, when he shall do me the honor 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 honorable appellation in Shakespeare, 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, Shakespeare, 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 _aplomb_
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 of
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 into
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--"Qui--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 anybody 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 in spite of
herself, while her color almost insensibly deepened--"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;
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?"
"It 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 harbor 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
honorable countryman in this Sir Brown," observed the short-winded
podestà, 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 Podestà, 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 favor of his
companion.
"And what is to be done, Signore?" demanded the podestà, 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 harbor, 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
podestà's mystification. Calling a neighbor to him, he sent the latter
up the hill with a message to Andrea Barrofaldi, and then he hurried
down toward the port, it being much easier for him, just at that moment,
to descend than to ascend. Raoul kept at his side, and together they
reached the water's edge.
The podestà 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 colors 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 humor to compensate for his tardiness by the excess of his
zeal. In consequence of this disposition and 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 rose in public favor exactly
in the degree in which the other fell. This interposition of Vito Viti's
was exceedingly àpropos, 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 podestà 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, neighbors, 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 Podestà," 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 harbor 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 toward her place of shelter. But
an artifice was practised to prevent her heading into the harbor's
mouth, the line having been brought inboard abaft her larboard cathead,
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 harbor, 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
canvas, 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
toward 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 colors
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 sank into the water, in stemming a swell, that anything like
foam could be seen under her forefoot. 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 harbor.
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 neighboring 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 endeavoring to escape, her rigging was
alive with men. Sail after sail was set, one white cloud succeeding
another, until she was a sheet of canvas 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 harbor, 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 toward the lugger, were restrained in their
wishes, not only by the voice of superior authority, but by that
of numbers.
In the mean while 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, through more than a mile to the
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 canvas 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 favorable 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 had in the podestà. 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 out-and-out
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 toward
the coast of Corsica, doubtless with an intention to molest the commerce
of that hostile island.