“Well; besides what?” demanded the captain, observing that the master’s-mate hesitated.

“Why, sir, how was I to know that any one in the ship would think a lugger could be seen eight or ten leagues?  That’s a long bit of water, sir; and it would take a heavy ship’s spars to rise high enough for such a sight.”

“The land you were on, Clinch, was much loftier than any vessel’s spars.”

“Quite true, sir; but not lofty enough for that, Captain Cuffe.  That I saw the Folly, I’m as certain as I as being in this cabin.”

“What has become of her, then?  You perceive she is not in the bay now.”

“I suppose, Captain Cuffe, that she stood in until near enough for her purpose, and that she must have hauled off the land after the night set in.  There was plenty of room for her to pass out to sea again, between the two frigates, and not be seen in the dark.”

This conjecture was so plausible as to satisfy Cuffe; yet it was not the fact.  Clinch had made le Feu-Follet, from his elevated post, to the southward, as his signal had said; and he was right in all his statements about her, until darkness concealed her movements.  Instead of passing out of the bay, as he imagined, however, she had hauled up within a quarter of a league of Campanella, doubled that point, brushed along the coast to the northward of it, fairly within the Bay of Naples, and pushed out to sea between Capri and Ischia, going directly athwart the anchorage the men-of-war had so recently quitted, in order to do so.

When Raoul quitted his vessel, he order her to stand directly off the land, just keeping Ischia and Capri in view, lying-to under her jigger.  As this was low sail, and a lugger shows so little aloft, it was a common expedient of cruisers of that rig, when they wished to escape observation.  Monsieur Pintard, Raoul’s first lieutenant, had expected a signal from his commander, at the very spot where Clinch had taken his station; but seeing none, he had swept along the coast after dark, in the hope of discovering his position by the burning of a blue light.  Failing of this, however, he went off the land again, in time to get an offing before the return of day, and to save the wind.  It was the boldness of the manoeuvre that saved the lugger; Lyon going out through the pass between Capri and Campanella, about twenty minutes before Pintard brushed close round the rocks, under his jigger and jib only, anxiously looking out for a signal from his captain.  The Frenchmen saw the sloop-of-war quite plainly, and by the aid of their night-glasses ascertained her character; mistaking her, however, for another ship, bound to Sicily or Malta—­while their own vessel escaped observation, owing to the little sail she carried, the want of hamper, and her situation so near the land, which gave her a background of rocks.  Clinch had not seen the movements of the lugger after dark, in consequence of his retiring to the village of St. Agata, to seek lodgings, as soon as he perceived that his own ship had gone to sea, and left him and his boat’s crew behind.  The following morning, when he made the ship to the southward, he pushed off, and pulled toward his proper vessel, as related.