and tack in season, to keep the islet between them, since the English did not dare to carry so large a ship through so narrow an opening.  This advantage Raoul did not overlook, and Cuffe had gone about twice, closing each time nearer and nearer to the islet, before he was satisfied that his guns would be of no service until he could at least weather the intervening object, after which they would most probably be useless in so light a wind by the distance between them and their enemy.

“Never mind, Mr. Griffin; let this scamp go,” said the captain, when he made this material discovery; “it is pretty well to have cleared the seas of one of them.  Besides, we do not know that this is an enemy at all.  He showed no colors, and seems to have just come out of Porto Ferrajo, a friendly haven.”

“Raoul Yvard did that, sir, not once, but twice,” muttered Yelverton, who, from the circumstance that he had not been employed in the different attempts on le Feu-Follet, was one of the very few dissentients in the ship touching her fate, “These twins are exceedingly alike; especially Pomp, as the American negro said of his twin children.”

This remark passed unheeded; for so deep was the delusion, in the ship, touching the destruction of the privateer, it would have been as hopeless an attempt to try to persuade her officers, and people generally, that le Feu-Follet was not burned, as it would be to induce a “great nation” to believe that it had any of the weaknesses and foibles that confessedly beset smaller communities.  The Proserpine was put about again, and, setting her ensign, she stood into the bay of Porto Ferrajo, anchoring quite near the place that Raoul had selected for the same purpose on two previous occasions.  The gig was lowered, and Cuffe, accompanied by Griffin as an interpreter, landed to pay the usual visit of ceremony to the authorities.

The wind being so light, several hours were necessary to effect all these changes; and by the time the two officers were ascending the terraced street the day had advanced sufficiently to render the visit suitable as to time.  Cuffe appearing in full uniform, with epaulettes and sword, his approach attracted notice; and Vito Viti hurried off to apprise his friend of the honor he was about to receive.  The vice-governatore was not taken by surprise, therefore, but had some little time to prepare his excuses for being the dupe of a fraud as impudent as that which Raoul Yvard had so successfully practised on him.  The reception was dignified, though courteous; and it had none the less of ceremony, from the circumstance that all which was said by the respective colloquists had to be translated before it could be understood.  This circumstance rendered the few first minutes of the interview a little constrained; but each party having something on his mind, of which it was his desire to be relieved, natural feeling soon got the better of forms.