“Aye, now the vecchy has set to work, I hope we shall get the worth of our ducat,” observed Cuffe, in English.

“S’nori,” rejoined Raoul, “it shall be just as your eccellenzi say.  The lugger you speak of was off the island last evening, steering toward Ischia; which place she must have reached in the course of the night, as there was a good land-wind from the twenty-third to the fifth hour.”

“This agrees with our account as to the time and place,” said Griffin; “but not at all as to the direction the corsair was steering.  We hear she was rather rounding the southern cape for the Gulf of Salerno.”

Raoul started, and gave thanks mentally that he had come on board, as this statement showed that his enemies had received only too accurate information of his recent movements.  He had hopes, however, of being able yet to change their intentions and of putting them on a wrong scent.

“S’nori,” he said, “I should like to know who it is that mistakes southeast for northwest.  None of our pilots or boatmen, I should think, could ever make so great a blunder.  S’nore, you are an officer and understand such things; and I will just ask you if Ischia does not lie northwest of Capri?”

“Of that fact there can be no manner of doubt,” returned Griffin; “it is equally true that the Gulf of Salerno lies southeast of both—­”

“There, now!” interrupted Raoul, with a well-acted assumption of vulgar triumph; “I knew your eccellenza, when you came to look into it, would see the folly of saying that a vessel which was standing from Capri toward Ischia was going on any other course than northwest!”

“But this is not the question, amico.  We all understand the bearings of these islands, which are the bearings of the whole coast down here-away; but the question is, which way the lugger was steering?”

“I thought I had said, eccellenza, that she was heading across toward Ischia,” answered Raoul, with an air of obtuse innocence.

“If you do, you give an account exactly different from that which has been sent to the admiral by the good bishop of your own island.  May I never eat another of his own quails if I think he would deceive us; and it is not easy to suppose a man like him does not know north from south.”

Raoul inwardly muttered a malediction on all priests; a class of men which, rightly enough, he believed to be united in their hostility to France.  But it would not do to express this in his assumed character; and he affected to listen, as one of his class ought to give ear to a fact that came from his spiritual father.

“North from south, eccellenza!  Monsignore knows a great deal more than that, if the truth were said; though, I suppose, these noble signori are acquainted with the right reverend father’s great infirmity?”

“Not we—­none of us, I fancy, ever had the honor to be in his company.  Surely, fellow, your bishop is a man of truth?”