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petto! 't is a thousand pities, too, they couldn't fire the third shot, that you might see it strike the lugger; as yet, you have only beheld their preparations."

"It is enough, Signor Podestà," returned Ghita, smiling, for she could smile now that she saw the soldiers intended no further mischief; "we have all heard of your Elba gunners, and what I have seen convinces me of what they can do when there is occasion. Look, Signore! the lugger is about to satisfy our curiosity."

The

Sure enough, the stranger saw fit to comply with the usages of nations. It has been said already, that the lugger was coming down before the wind wing-and-wing, or with a sail expanded to the air on each side of her hull, a disposition of the canvass that gives to the felucca, and to the lugger in particular, the most picturesque of all their graceful attitudes. Unlike the narrowheaded sails which a want of hands has introduced among ourselves, these foreign, we might almost say classical, mariners send forth their long pointed yards aloft, confining the width below by the necessary limits of the sheet, making up for the difference in elevation by the greater breadth of their canvass. idea of the felucca's sails, in particular, would seem to have been literally taken from the wing of the large sea-fowl, the shape so nearly corresponding, that, with the canvass spread in the manner just mentioned, one of those light craft has a very close resemblance to the gull or the hawk as it poises itself in the air, or is swooping down upon its prey. The lugger has less of the beauty which adorns a picture, perhaps, than the strictly latine rig; but it approaches so near it as to be always pleasing to the eye, and, in the particular evolution described, is scarcely less attractive. To the seaman, however, it brings with it an air of greater service, being a mode of carrying canvass that will buffet with the heaviest gales, or the roughest seas, while it appears so pleasant to the eye in the blandest airs and smoothest water.

The lugger now beneath the heights of Elba had three masts, though sails were spread only on the two which were forward. The third mast was stepped on the taffrail; it was small, and carried a little sail which, in English, is termed a jigger, its principal use being to press the bows of the craft up to the wind when close hauled, and render her what is termed weatherly. On the present occasion, there could scarcely be said to be anything deserving the name of wind, though Ghita felt her cheek, which was warmed with the rich blood of her country, fanned by an air so gentle that occasionally it blew aside tresses which seemed to vie with the floss silk of her native land. Had the natural ringlets been less light, however, so gentle a respiration of the sea air could scarcely have disturbed them. But the lugger had her lightest duck spread

reserving the heavier canvass for the storms - and it opened like the folds of a balloon even before these gentle impulses; occasionally collapsing, it is true, as the ground-swell swung the yards to and fro, but, on the whole, standing out and receiving the air as if guided more by volition than any mechanical power. The effect on the hull was almost magical; for, notwithstanding the nearly imperceptible force of the propelling power, owing to the lightness and exquisite mould of the craft, it served to urge her through the water at the rate of some three or four knots in the hour; or quite as fast as an ordinarily active man is apt to walk. Her motion was nearly unobservable to all on board, and might rather be termed gliding than sailing, the ripple under her cutwater not much exceeding that which is made by the finger as it is moved swiftly through the element; still the slightest variation of the helm changed her course, and this so easily and gracefully as to render her deviations and inclinations like those of the duck. In her present situation, too, the jigger, which was brailed, and hung festooned from its light yard ready for use, should occasion suddenly demand it, added singularly to the smart air which everything wore about this craft, giving her, in the seaman's eyes, that particularly knowing and suspicious look which had awakened 'Maso's distrust.

The preparations to show the ensign, which had caught the quick and understanding glance of Ghita, and which had not escaped even the duller vision of the artillerists, were made at the outer end of this jigger-yard. A boy had appeared on the taffrail, and he was evidently clearing the ensign-halyards for that purpose. In half a minute, however, he disappered, and then a flag rose steadily, and by a continued pull, to its station. At first the bunting hung suspended in a line, so as to evade all examination; but, as if everything on board this light craft were on a scale as airy and buoyant as herself, the folds soon expanded, showing a white field traversed at right angles with a red cross, and having a union of the same tint in its upper and inner corner.

"Inglese!" exclaimed 'Maso, infinitely aided in this conjecture by the sight of the stranger's ensign - "Sì, Signore; it is an Englishman; I thought so, from the first, but as the lugger is not a common rig for vessels of that nation, I did not like to risk anything by saying it."

"Well, honest Tommaso, it is a happiness to have a mariner as skilful as yourself, in these troublesome times, at one's elbow! I do not know how else we should ever have found out the stranger's country. An Inglese! Corpo di Bacco! Who would have thought that a nation so maritime, and which lies so far off, would send so small a craft this vast distance! Why, Ghita, it is a voyage from Elba to Livorno, and yet, I dare say, England is twenty times farther."

"Signore, I know little of England, but I have heard that it lies beyond our own sea. This is the flag of the country, however; for that have I often beheld. Many ships of that nation come upon the coast further south."

"Yes, it is a great country for mariners; though they tell me it has neither wine nor oil. They are allies of the emperor, too, and deadly enemies of the French, who have done so much harm in upper Italy. That is something, Ghita, and every Italian should honour the flag. I fear this stranger does not intend to enter our harbour!"

"He steers as if he did not, certainly, Signor Podestà," said Ghita, sighing so gently that the respiration was audible only to herself. "Perhaps he is in search of some of the French, of whom they say so many were seen, last year, going east."

"Ay, that was truly an enterprise!" answered the magistrate, gesticulating on a large scale, and opening his eyes by way of accompaniments. "General Bonaparte, he who had been playing the devil in the Milanese and the States of the Pope for the last two years, sailed, they sent us word, with two or three hundred ships, the Saints, at first, knew whither! Some said, it was to destroy the Holy Sepulchre; some, to overturn the Grand Turk; and some thought, to seize the Islands. There was a craft in here, the same week, which said he had got possession of the island of Malta; in which case we might look out for trouble in Elba. I had my suspicious from the first!"

"All this I heard at the time, Signore, and my uncle probably could tell you more - how we all felt at the tidings!"

"Well, that is all over now, and the French are in Egypt. Your uncle, Ghita, has gone upon the main, I hear?" this was said inquiringly, and it was intended to be said carelessly; but the podestà could not prevent a glance of suspicion from accompanying the question.

"Signore, I believe he has; but I know little of his affairs. The time has come, however, when I ought to expect him. See, eccellenza!" - a title that never failed to mollify the magistrate, and turn his attention from others entirely to himself - "the lugger really appears disposed to look into your bay, if not actually to enter it!"

This sufficed to change the discourse. Nor was it said altogether without reason; the lugger, which by this time had passed the western promontory, actually appearing disposed to do as Ghita conjectured. She had jibed her main-sail, brought both sheets of canvass on her larboard side, and luffed a little so as to cause her head to look towards the opposite side of the bay, instead of standing in, as before, in the direction of the canal. This change in the lugger's course produced a general movement in the crowd, which began to quit the heights, hastening to descend the terraced streets, in order to reach the haven. 'Maso and the podestà led the van in this descent; and the girls, with Ghita in the midst, followed with equal curiosity, but with eager steps. By the time the throng was assembled on the quays, in the streets, on the decks of feluccas, or at other points that commanded the view, the stranger was seen gliding past, in the centre of the wide and deep bay, with his jigger hauled out, and his sheets aft, looking up nearly into the wind's eye, if that could be called wind which was still little more than the sighing of the classical zephyr. His motion was necessarily slow, but it continued light, easy, and graceful. After passing the entrance of the port a mile or more, he tacked and looked up towards the haven. By this time, however, he had got so near in to the western cliffs that their lee deprived him of all air; and after keeping his canvass open half an hour in the little roads, it was all suddenly drawn to the yards, and the lugger anchored.

CHAPTER II.

His stock, a few French phrases got by heart,
With much to learn, but nothing to impart;
The youth, obedient to his sire's commands,
Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.

COWPER.

Ir was now nearly dark, and the crowd, having satisfied its idle curiosity, began slowly to disperse. The Signor Viti remained till the last, conceiving it to be his duty to be on the alert in such troubled times; but with all his bustling activity it escaped his vigilance and means of observation to detect the circumstance that the stranger, who, while he steered into the bay with so much confidence, had contrived to bring up at a point where not a single gun from the batteries could be brought to bear on him; while his own shot, had he been disposed to hostility, would have completely raked the little haven. But Vito Viti, though so enthusiastic an admirer of the art, was no gunner himself, and little liked to dwell on the effect of shot, except as it applied to others and not at all to himself.

Of all the suspicious, apprehensive, and curious who had been collected in and about the port since it was known the lugger intended to come into the bay, Ghita and 'Maso alone remained on watch after the vessel anchored. A loud hail had been given by those entrusted with the execution of the quarantine laws, the great physical bug-bear and moral mystification of the Mediterranean; and the questions put had been answered in a way to satisfy all scruples for the moment. The "From whence came ye?" asked, however, in an Italian idiom, had been answered by "Inghilterra, touching at Lisbon and Gibraltar," all regions

The Jack O'Lantern.

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