“I trust not, sir.  Will you allow me to suggest a slight alteration in the spelling of the lugger’s name, Captain Cuffe; the clerk can make it when he writes out the letter fairly.”

“Aye—­I dare say it is different from what we would have it; French spelling being no great matter in general.  Put it as you please; though Nelson has as great a contempt for their boasted philosophy and learning as I have myself.  I fancy you will find all the English spelt right.  How do you write their confounded gibberish?”

“Feu-Follet, sir, pronouncing the last part of it fol-lay; not fol-ly.  I was thinking of asking leave, Captain Cuffe, to take one of the cutters and pull up to the lugger’s anchorage and see if anything can be found of her wreck.  The ship will hardly get under way until the westerly wind comes.”

“No; probably not.  I will order my gig manned, and we’ll go together.  Poor Winchester must keep house awhile; so there is no use in asking him.  I saw no necessity for putting Nelson into a passion by saying anything about the exact amount of our loss in that boat scrape, Griffin.”

“I agree with you, sir, that it is best as it is.  ‘Some loss’ covers everything—­it means ‘more or less.’”

“That was just my notion.  I dare say there may have been twenty women in the lugger.”

“I can’t answer for the number, sir; but I heard female singing as we got near in the fire-ship, and think it likely there may have been that number.  The lugger was full-manned; for they were like bees swarming on her forecastle when we were dropping foul.  I saw Raoul Yvard by the light of the fire as plainly as I now see you, and might have picked him off with a musket; but that would hardly have been honorable.”

To this Cuffe assented, and then he led the way on deck, having previously ordered the boats manned.  The two officers proceeded to the spot where they supposed the Feu-Follet had been anchored, and rowed round for near an hour, endeavoring to find some traces of her wreck on the bottom.  Griffin suggested that, when the magazine was drowned, in the hurry and confusion of the moment, the cock may have been left open—­a circumstance that might very well have carried down the bottom of so small a vessel in two or three hours; more especially after her hull had burnt to the water’s edge.  The next thing was to find this bottom, by no means a hopeless task, as the waters of the Mediterranean are usually so clear that the eye can penetrate several fathoms, even off the mouth of the Golo—­a stream that brought more or less debris from the mountains.  It is scarcely necessary to say that the search was not rewarded with success, the Feu-Follet being, just at that time, snug at anchor at Bastia, where her people had already taken out her wounded mainmast, with a view to step a new one in its place.  At that very moment, Carlo Giuntotardi, his niece, and Raoul Yvard were walking up the principal street of