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"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 which 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 stirr'd 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 looking at Le Feu-Follet with longing eyes, and most of them admiring her appearance, as she lay on the mirror-like Mediterranean, with the two light sails mentioned, 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 hammockcloths of the waist, as he stood on the heel of a spare top-mast to do so; "I never put eyes on a scamp that had a more d-n-myeyes 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 honour, 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 towards 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."

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Strand was a grey-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 could 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 firstlieutenant.

"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 manof-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?"

"Ay, 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 himself, 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 which the lieutenants have for getting a-head 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 butteau." 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 slendernecked chap, who 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 that 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 the 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 colours 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 roeks 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 waring, 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-governor, 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, meanwhile 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 set 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 harbour 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. Eight or nine men were visible on the felucca's deck, all dressed in the guise of Italians, with caps and striped shirts of cotton; and thirty-five men were concealed in the hold.

Thus far everything was favourable 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 become so light as to favour 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 delightfull 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 which 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

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