“I say that this gentleman has done me the honor of several visits in my poor residence at Porto Ferrajo,” returned Andrea; “and that never has he been more welcome than he is at this moment.  Signor Smees, you are a great lover of masquerades and make a carnival of the whole year.  I trust your distinguished countryman, Sir Cicero, will have it in his power to convince these brave Inglese that all is done in pure pleasantry and without a crime.”

“Messieurs,” said Raoul, stripping himself of his borrowed plumes, “it is too late to feign any longer. If I am Raoul Yvard, as you say, I am certainly not le Feu-Follet.”

“Of course you are aware, Monsieur,” observed Griffin, in French, “that you are a prisoner to His Britannic Majesty?”

“Sa Majeste Britannique has not made a conquest equal to his success at the Nile,” returned Raoul, ironically; “but he has me in his hands.  It is not the first time that I have had the honor to be a prisoner of war, and that, too, in one of his own ships.”

“You are not to suppose that such will be your situation now, Monsieur Yvard.  We arrest you in a totally different character.”

“Not as a friend, I trust, Monsieur; for, I protest, I have not the smallest claim to the character; as witness a short interview off Porto Ferrajo and an interesting incident at the mouth of the Golo.”

“Your taunts maybe spared, sir; fortune favored you then, we allow; but now we arrest you as a spy.”

“Espion!” repeated Raoul, starting; “that is an office I never contemplated, Monsieur, on coming on board your ship.  You will do me the justice to acknowledge that it was only at your own invitation that I came on deck.  ’Twould be an infamy to pretend differently.”

“We will endure the infamy of our acts, Monsieur Yvard.  No one accuses you of having come on board the Proserpine as a spy; but, when an enemy is found rowing about our fleet, which is anchored in a hostile bay, and this in a disguise like yours, it most be a very scrupulous conscience that hesitates to pronounce him a spy and liable to the punishment of one.”

This was so true that the unfortunate young man now felt the exceeding delicacy of his situation.  In coming into the bay he had certainly been led by no other intention than to find Ghita; and yet he could not but confess to himself that he should not have hesitated about profiting, in his public character, by any information incidentally obtained.  He had subjected himself to the severest penalties of military law by yielding to his passion for Ghita; and he could not discover a single available excuse to plead in mitigation.

“What does the poor devil say, Griffin?” asked Cuffe, who felt regret that so brave an enemy should be reduced to so desperate a strait, notwithstanding his determined hostility to all Frenchmen; “do not bear too hard upon him, at the first go off.  Has he any excuse for his disguise?”