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to make nis bargain, and to deliver the articles, which was his real object on shore. This little smuggling transaction was carried on altogether without the knowledge of Raoul Yvard, who was, to all intents and purposes, the captain of his own lugger, and in whose character there were inany traits of chivalrous honour, mixed up with habits and pursuits which would not seem to promise qualities so elevated. But this want of a propensity to turn a penny in his own way, was not the only distinguishing characteristic between the commander of the little craft and the being he occasionally used as a mask to his true purposes.

CHAPTER V.

The great contention of the sea and skies
Parted our fellowship: - But, hark! a sail.

CASSIO.

WHATEVER may have been the result of the vice-governor's further inquiries and speculations that night, they were not known. After consuming an hour in the lower part of the town, in and around the port, he and the podestà sought their homes and their pillows, leaving the lugger riding quietly at her anchor in the spot where she was last presented to the reader's attention. If Raoul Yvard and Ghita had another interview, too, it was so secretly managed as to escape all observation, and can form no part of this narrative.

A Mediterranean morning at midsummer is one of those balmy and soothing periods of the day that affect the mind as well as the body. Everywhere we have the mellow and advancing light which precedes the appearance of the sun the shifting hues of the sky - that pearly softness which seenis to have been invented to make us love the works of God's hand, and the warm glow of the bril liant sun; but it is not everywhere that these fascinating changes occur on a sea whose blue vies with the darkest depths of the void of space, beneath a climate which is as winning as the scenes it adorns, and amid mountains whose faces reflect every varying shade of light with the truth and the poetry of nature. Such a morning as this last was that which succeeded the night with which our tale opened, bringing with it the reviving movements of the port and town. Italy, as a whole, is remarkable for an appearance of quiet and repose which are little known in the more bustling scenes of the greedier commerce of America, or, indeed, in those of most of the northern nations of Europe. There is in her aspect, modes of living, and even in her habits of business, an air of decayed gentility which is wanting to the ports, shops, and marts of the more vulgar parts of the world; as if, conscious of having been so long the focus of human refinement, it was unbecoming, in these later days, to throw aside all traces of her history and power. Man, and the climate, too, seem in unison; one meeting the cares of life with a far-niente manner which is singularly in accordance with the dreamy and soothing atmosphere he respires.

Just as day dawned, the fall of a billet of wood on the deck of the Feu-Follet, gave the first intimation that any one was stirring in or near the haven. If there had been a watch on board that craft throughout the night, and doubtless such had been the case, it had been kept in so quiet and unobtrusive a manner as to render it questionable to the jealous eyes which had been riveted on her from the shore until long past midnight. Now, however, everything was in motion, and in less than five minutes after that billet of wood had fallen from the hands of the cook, as he was about to light his galley-fire, the tops of the hats and caps of some fifty or sixty sailors were seen moving to and fro, just above the upper edge of the bulwarks. Three minutes later, and two men appeared near the knight-heads, each with his arms folded, looking at the vessel's hawse, and taking a survey of the state of the harbour and of objects on the surrounding shore.

The two individuals who were standing in the conspicuous position named, were Raoul Yvard himself and Ithuel Bolt. Their conversation was in French, the part borne by the latter being most execrably pronounced, he paying little or no attention to grammar; but it is necessary that we should render what was said by both into the vernacular, with the peculiarities which belonged to the men.

"I sce only the Austrian that is worth the trouble of a movement," quietly observed Raoul, whose eye was scanning the inner harbour, his own vessel lying two hundred yards without it, it will be remembered; "and she is light, and would scarcely pay for sending her to Toulon. These feluccas would embarrass us, without affording much reward, and then their loss would ruin the poor devils of owners, and bring misery into many a family."

"Well, that's a new idee for a privateer!" said Ithuel, sneeringly; "luck's luck in these matters, and every man must count on what war turns up. I wish you'd read the history of our revolution, and then you'd ha' seen that liberty and equality are not to be had without some ups and downs in fortins and chances.”

"The Austrian might do," added Raoul, who paid little attention to his companion's remarks, “if he were a streak or two lower in the water; but after all, E-too-ell," for so he pronounced the other's name, "I do not like a capture that is made without any éclat or spirit in the attack and defence."

"Well," this word Ithuel invariably pronounced "wa-a-l" "well, to my notion, the most profitable and the most agreeable battles are the shortest, and the pleasantest victories are them in which there's the most prize-money. Howsever, as that brig is only an Austrian, I care little what you may detairmine to do with her; was she English, I'd head a boat myself to go in and tow her out here, expressly to have the satisfaction of burning her. English ships make a cheerful fire!"

"And that would be a useless waste of property, and perhaps of blood, and would do no one any good, Etooell."

"But it would do the accursed English harm, and that counts for a something in my reckoning. Nelson wasn't so over-scrupulous at the Nile about burning your ships, Mr. Rule -"

"Tonnèrre! why do you always bring in that malheureux Nile? Is it not enough that we were beaten

disgraced

stroyed - that a friend must tell us of it so often?"

de

"You forget, Mr. Rule, that I was an inimy, then;" returned Ithuel, with a grin and a grim smile. "If you 'll take the trouble to examine my back, you'll find on it the marks of the lashes I got for just telling my captain that it went ag'in the grain for me, a republican as I was by idee and natur', to fight other republicans, The Jack O'Lantern,

5

He told me that he would first try the grain of my skin, and see how that would agree with what he called my duty; and I must own, he got the best on 't; I fit like a tiger ag'in you rather than be flogged twice the same day. Flogging on a sore back is an awful argument!"

"And now has come the hour of revenge, pauvre Etooell; this time you are on the right side, and may fight with heart and mind those you so much hate."

A long and gloomy silence followed, during which Raoul turned his face aft, and stood looking at the movements of the men as they washed the decks, while Ithuel seated himself on a knighthead, and, his chin resting on his hand, he sat ruminating, in bitterness of spirit, like Milton's devil, in some of his dire cogitations, on the atrocious wrong of which he had really been the subject. Bodies of men are proverbially heartless. They commit injustice without reflection, and vindicate their abuses without remorse. And yet it may be doubtful if either a nation or an individual ever tolerated, or was an accessary in, a wrong, that the act sooner or later did not recoil on the offending party, through that mysterious principle of right, which is implanted in the nature of things, bringing forth its own results as the seed produces its grain, and the tree its fruits; a supervision of holiness which it is usual to term (and rightly enough, when we remember who created principles) the providence of God. Let that people dread the future who, in their collected capacity, systematically encourage injustice of any sort; since their own eventual demoralization will follow as a necessary consequence, even though they escape punishment in a more direct form.

We shall not stop to relate the moody musings of the NewHampshire man. Unnurtured and, in many respects, unprincipled as he was, he had his clear conceptions of the injustice of which he had been one, among thousands of other victims; and, at that moment, he would have held life itself as a cheap sacrifice, could he have had his fill of revenge. Often, while a captive on board the English ship in which he had been immured for years, had he meditated the desperate expedient of blowing up the vessel; and had not the means been wanting, mercenary and selfish as he ordinarily seemed, so dire a scheme he was every way equal to execute, in order to put an end to the lives of those who were the agents in wronging him, and his own sufferings together. The subject never recurred to his mind without momentarily changing the current of its thoughts, and tinging all his feelings with an intensity of bitterness which it was painful to bear. At length, sighing heavily, he rose from the knight-head, and turned towards the mouth of the bay, as if to conceal from Raoul the expression of his countenance. This act, however, was scarcely done before he started, and an exclamation escaped him which induced his companion to turn quickly on his heel, and face the sea. There, indeed, the growing light enabled both to discover an object which could scarcely be other than one of interest to men in their situation.

It has been said already, that the deep bay, on the side of which stands the town of Porto Ferrajo, opens to the north, looking in the direction of the headland of Piombino. On the right of the bay the land, high and broken, stretches several miles before it forms what is called the Canal, while on the left it terminates with the low bluff on which stands the residence then occupied by Andrea Barrofaldi; and which has since become so celebrated as the abode of one far greater than the worthy vice-governor. The haven lying under these heights, on the left of the bay, and by the side of the town, it followed as a matter of course that the anchorage of the lugger was also in this quarter of the bay, commanding a clear view to the north, in the direction of the main land, as far as eye could reach. The width of the Canal, or of the passage between Elba and the Point of Piombino, may be some six or seven miles; and at the distance of less than one mile from the northern end of the former, stands a small rocky islet, which has since become known to the world as the spot on which Napoleon stationed a corporal's guard, by way of taking possesion, when he found his whole empire dwindled to the sea-girt mountains in its vicinity. With the existence and position of this island, both Raoul and Ithuel were necessarily acquainted, for they had seen it and noted its situation the previous night, though it had escaped their notice that, from the place where the Feu-Follet

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