“Heave again, sir!—­be brisk, my lad!—­be brisk!”

“Be-e-e-ther-r-r-dee-e-e-eep six!” followed almost as soon as the Captain’s voice had ceased.

“Ready-about,” shouted Cuffe.  “See all clear, gentlemen.  Move lively, men; more lively.”

“And-a-a-eh half-ef-four—­”

“Stand by!—­What the devil are you at, sir, on that forecastle?—­Are you ready, forward?”

“All ready, sir—­”

“Down with your helm—­hard down at once—­”

“Be-e-e-ther-r-r-dee-e-e-p nine—­”

“Meet her!—­up with your helm.  Haul down your sheets forward—­brail the spanker—­let go all the bowlines aft.  So—­well, there, well.  She flew round like a top; but, by Jove, we’ve caught her, gentlemen.  Drag your bowlines again.  What’s the news from the chains?”

“No bottom, sir, with fifteen fathoms out—­and as good a cast, too, sir, as we’ve had to-day.”

“So—­you’re rap full—­don’t fall off—­very well dyce” (Anglice, thus)—­“keep her as you are.  Well, by the Lord, Griffin, that was a shave; half-four was getting to be squally in a quarter of the world where a rock makes nothing of pouting its lips fifteen or twenty feet at a time at a mariner.  We are past it all, however, and here is the land, trending away to the southward like a man in a consumption, fairly under our lee.  A dozen Raoul Yvards wouldn’t lead me into such a d—­d scrape again!”

“The danger that is over is no longer a danger at all, sir,” answered Griffin, laughing.  “Don’t you think, Captain Cuffe, we might ease her about half a point? that would be just her play; and the lugger keeps off a little, I rather suspect, to ease her mainmast.  I’m certain I saw chips fly from it when we dosed her with those two-and-twenty pills.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Griffin.  Ease her with the helm a little, Mr. Yelverton.  If Master Yvard stands on his present course an hour longer, Biguglia would be too far to windward for him; and as for Bastia, that has been out of the question from the first.  There is a river called Golo, into which he might run; and that, I rather think, is his aim.  Four hours, however, will let us into his secret.”

And four intensely interesting hours were those which succeeded.  The wind was a cap-full; a good, fresh, westerly breeze, which seemed to have started out of the oven-like heat of a week of intensely hot weather that had preceded it, and to have collected the force of two or three zephyrs into one.  It was not a gale at all, nor did it induce either party to think of reefing; no trifle would have done that, under the circumstances; but it caused the Proserpine to furl her fore and mizzentopgallant-sails, and put Raoul in better humor with the loss of his jigger.  When fairly round the headland, and at a moment when he fancied the frigate would be compelled to tack, the latter had seized an opportunity to get in his foresail, to unbend it, and to bend and set a new