“What will you have us do, Captain Cuffe?” inquired the lieutenant.  “We are now going to leeward, all the while, I don’t know, sir, that there is positively a current here, but—­”

“Very well, sir—­very well—­haul up on the larboard tack, as soon as possible, and get the larboard batteries clear.  We may have to cripple the chap in order to get hold of him.”

As this was said, Cuffe descended through the same lubber-hole and soon appeared on deck.  The ship now became a scene of activity and bustle.  All hands were called, and the guns were cleared away by some, while others braced the yards, according to the new line of sailing.

The reader would be greatly aided, in understanding what is to follow, could he, perchance, cast a look at a map of the coast of Italy.  He will there see that the eastern side of the Island of Elba runs in a nearly north and south direction, Piombino lying off about north-northeast from its northern extremity.  Near this northern extremity lies the little rocky islet so often mentioned, or the spot which Napoleon, fifteen years later, selected as the advanced redoubt of his insular empire.  Of course the Proserpine was on one side of this islet and the strange lugger on the other.  The first had got so far through the Canal as to be able to haul close upon the wind, on the larboard tack, and yet to clear the islet; while the last was just far enough to windward, or sufficiently to the southward, to be shut out from view from the frigate’s decks by the intervening rocks.  As the distance from the islet to the island did not much exceed a hundred or two yards, Captain Cuffe hoped to inclose his chase between himself and the land, never dreaming that the stranger would think of standing through so narrow and rocky a pass.  He did not know his man, however, who was Raoul Yvard; and who had come this way from Bastia, in the hope of escaping any further collision with his formidable foe.  He had seen the frigate’s lofty sails above the rock as soon as it was light; and, being under no hallucination on the subject of her existence, he knew her at a glance.  His first order was to haul everything as flat as possible; and his great desire was to get from under the lee of the mountains of Elba into this very pass, through which the wind drew with more force than it blew anywhere near by.

As the Proserpine was quite a league off in the Canal, le Feu-Follet, which sailed so much the fastest in light winds, had abundance of time to effect her object.  Instead of avoiding the narrow pass between the two islands, Raoul glided boldly into it; and by keeping vigilant eyes on his fore-yard, to apprise him of danger, he succeeded in making two stretches in the strait itself, coming out to the southward on the starboard tack, handsomely clearing the end of the islet at the very instant the frigate appeared on the other side of the pass.  The lugger had now an easy task of it; for she had only to watch her enemy,