“Do you really think so, Captain Cuffe?—­Now, to my notion, this day hasn’t had its equal on the Proserpine’s log, since we got hold of l’Epervier and her convoy.  You forget, sir, that we destroyed le Feu-Follet last night!”

“Aye—­that is something—­especially for you, Griffin.  Well, Nelson will hear of it by mail as soon as we can get into Leghorn, which will be immediately after I have had an opportunity of communicating with these people in Porto Ferrajo.  After all that has passed, the least we can do is to let your veechy-govern-the-tories know of our success.”

“Sail, ho!” shouted the lookout, on the foretopsail-yard.

The two officers turned, and gazed round them in every direction, when the captain made the customary demand of “Where-away?”

“Here, sir, close aboard of us, on our larboard hand, and on our weather quarter.”

“On our weather quarter!  D—­n me if that can be true, Griffin.  There is nothing but the island there.  The fellow cannot have mistaken this little island for the hull of a ship?”

“If he has, sir,” answered Griffin, laughing, “it must be for a twenty-decker.  That is Ben Brown aloft, and he is as good a lookout as we have in the ship.”

“Do you see her, sir?” demanded Ben Brown, looking over his shoulder to put the question.

“Not a bit of her,” cried Cuffe.  “You must be dreaming, fellow.  What does she look like?”

“There, this small island shuts her in from the deck, sir.  She is a lugger; and looks as much like the one we burnt last night, sir, as one of our catheads is like t’other.”

“A lugger!” exclaimed Cuffe.  “What, another of the blackguards!  By Jove!  I’ll go aloft and take a look for myself.  It’s ten to one that I see her from the maintop.”

In three minutes more, Captain Cuffe was in the top in question; having passed through the lubber-hole, as every sensible man does, in a frigate, more especially when she stands up for want of wind.  That was an age in which promotion was rapid, there being few gray-bearded lieutenants, then, in the English marine; and even admirals were not wanting who had not cut all their wisdom-teeth.  Cuffe, consequently, was still a young man; and it cost him no great effort to get up his ship’s ratlins in the manner named.  Once in the top, he had all his eyes about him.  For quite a minute he stood motionless, gazing in the direction that had been pointed out by Ben Brown.  All this time Griffin stood on the quarter-deck, looking quite as intently at his superior as the latter gazed at the strange sail.  Then Cuffe deigned to cast a glance literally beneath him, in order to appease the curiosity which, he well understood, it was so natural for the officer of the watch to feel.  Griffin did not dare to ask his captain what he saw; but he looked a volume of questions on the interesting subject.

“A sister corsair, by Jupiter Ammon!” cried Cuffe; “a twin sister, too; for they are as much alike as one cathead is like another.  More too, by Jove, if I am any judge.”