These words were hardly uttered before Raoul was back on the heel of the bowsprit, and the most active of his men—­some five or six at most—­began to show themselves on deck.  In that brief space, the felucca had got within eighty yards, when, to the surprise of all in the lugger, she luffed into the wind again and drifted down, until it was apparent that she was foul of the lugger’s cable, her stern swinging round directly on the latter’s starboard bow.  At that instant, or just as the two vessels came in actual contact, and Raoul’s men were thronging around him to meet the expected attack, the sound of oars, pulled for life or death, were heard, and flames burst upward from the open hatch of the coaster.  Then a boat was dimly seen gliding away in a line with the hull, by the glowing light.

“Un brulot!—­un brulot!—­a fire-ship!” exclaimed twenty voices together, the horror that mingled in the cries proclaiming the extent of a danger which is, perhaps, the most terrific that seamen can encounter.

But the voice of Raoul Yvard was not among them.  The moment his eye caught the first glimpse of the flames he disappeared from the bowsprit.  He might have been absent about twenty seconds.  Then he was seen on the taffrail of the felucca, with a spare shank-painter, which had been lying on the forecastle, on his shoulder.

“Antoine!—­Francois!—­Gregoire!”—­he called out, in a voice of thunder—­“follow me!—­the rest clear away the cable and bend a hawser to the better end!”

The people of le Feu-Follet were trained to order and implicit obedience.  By this time, too, the lieutenants were among them; and the men set about doing as they had been directed.  Raoul himself passed into the felucca, followed by the three men he had selected by name.  The adventurers had no difficulty, as yet, in escaping the flames, though by this time they were pouring upward from the hatch in a torrent.  As Raoul suspected, his cable had been grappled; and, seizing the rope, he tightened it to a severe strain, securing the in-board part.  Then he passed down to the cable himself, directing his companions to hand him the rope-end of the shank-painter, which he fastened to the cable by a jamming hitch.  This took half a minute; in half a minute more he was on the felucca’s forecastle again.  Here the chain was easily passed through a hawse-hole, and a knot tied, with a marlinspike passed through its centre.  To pass the fire on the return was now a serious matter; but it was done without injury, Raoul driving his companions before him.  No sooner did his foot reach the bows of le Feu-Follet again than he shouted: 

“Veer away!—­pay out cable, men, if you would save our beautiful lugger from destruction!”