Ghita paused a moment, and then her light fingers passed over the strings of her guitar in a solemn symphony; after which came the sweet strains of “Ave Maria,” in a voice and melody that might, in sooth, have touched a heart of stone.  Ghita, a Neapolitan by birth, had all her country’s love for music; and she had caught some of the science that seems to pervade nations in that part of the world.  Nature had endowed her with one of the most touching voices of her sex; one less powerful than mellow and sweet; and she never used it in a religious office without its becoming tremulous and eloquent with feeling.  While she was now singing this well-known hymn, a holy hope pervaded her moral system, that, in some miraculous manner, she might become the agent of turning Raoul to the love and worship of God; and the feeling communicated itself to her execution.  Never before had she sung so well; as a proof of which Ithuel left his knight-head and came aft to listen, while the two French mariners on watch temporarily forgot their duty, in entranced attention.

“If anything could make me a believer, Ghita,” murmured Raoul, when the last strain had died on the lips of his beloved, “it would be to listen to thy melody!  What now, Monsieur Etooell! are you, too, a lover of holy music?”

“This is rare singing, Captain Rule; but we have different business on hand.  If you will step to the other end of the lugger, you can take a look at the craft that has been crawling along, in-shore of us, for the last three hours—­there is something about her that is unnat’ral; she seems to be dropping down nearer to us, while she has no motion through the water.  The last circumstance I hold to be unnat’ral with a vessel that has all sail set and in this breeze.”

Raoul pressed the hand of Ghita, and whispered her to go below, as he was fearful the air of the night might injure her.  He then went forward, where he could command as good a view of the felucca in-shore, as the obscurity of the hour permitted; and he felt a little uneasiness, when he found how near she had got to the lugger.  When he last noted her position, this vessel was quite half a mile distant, and appeared to be crossing the bows of le Feu-Follet, with sufficient wind to have carried her a mile ahead in the interval; yet could he not perceive that she had advanced as far, in that direction, as she had drifted down upon the lugger the while.

“Have you been examining her long?” he demanded of the New Hampshire man.

“Ever since she has seemed to stand still; which is now some twenty minutes.  She is dull, I suppose, for she has been several hours getting along a league; and there is now air enough for such a craft to go three knots to the hour.  Her coming down upon us is easily accounted for, there being a considerable current out of this river, as you may see by the ripple at our own cut-water; but I find nothing to keep her from going ahead at the same time.  I set her by the light you see, here, in the wake of the nearest mountain, at least a quarter of an hour since, and she has not advanced five times her own length since.”