“All safe, man-capitaine. Le Feu-Follet never shows her lantern until she wishes to lead an enemy into the mire!”

Raoul laughed, and pronounced the word “bon” in the emphatic manner peculiar to a Frenchman.  Then, as the lugger was drawing swiftly in toward the rocks, he went on the forecastle himself, to keep a proper lookout ahead; Ithuel, as usual, standing at his side.

The piano or plain of Sorrento terminates, on the side of the bay, in perpendicular cliffs of tufa, that vary from one to near two hundred feet in height.  Those near the town are among the highest, and are lined with villas, convents, and other dwellings, of which the foundations are frequently placed upon shelves of rock fifty feet below the adjacent streets.  Raoul had been often here during the short reign of the Rufo faction, and was familiar with most of the coast.  He knew that his little lugger might brush against the very rocks, in most places, and was satisfied that if he fell in with the Proserpine’s boats at all, it must be quite near the land.  As the night wind blew directly down the play, sighing across the campagna, between Vesuvius and Castel a Mare, it became necessary to tack off-shore, as soon as le Feu-Follet got close to the cliffs where the obscurity was greatest, and her proportions and rig were not discernible at any distance.  While in the very act of going round, and before the head-sheets were drawn, Raoul was startled by a sudden hail.

“Felucca, ahoy!” cried one, in English, from a boat that was close on the lugger’s bow.

“Halloo!” answered Ithuel, raising an arm, for all near him to be quiet.

“What craft’s that?” resumed he in the boat.

“A felucca sent down by the admiral to look for the Proserpine—­not finding her at Capri, we are turning up to the anchorage of the fleet again.”

“Hold on a moment, sir, if you please; I’ll come on board you.  Perhaps I can help you out of your difficulty; for I happen to know something of that ship.”

“Aye, aye—­bear a hand, if you please; for we want to make the most of this wind while it stands.”

It is singular how easily we are deceived, when the mind commences by taking a wrong direction.  Such was now the fact with him in the boat, for he had imbibed the notion that he could trace the outlines of a felucca, of which so many navigate those waters, and the idea that it was the very lugger he had been seeking never crossed his mind.  Acting under the delusion, he was soon alongside, and on the deck of his enemy.

“Do you know this gentleman, Etooelle?” demanded Raoul, who had gone to the gangway to receive his visitor.

“It is Mr. Clinch, the master’s-mate of the accursed Proserpine; he who spoke us in the yawl, off the point yonder.”

“How!” exclaimed Clinch, his alarm being sufficiently apparent in his voice; “have I fallen into the hands of Frenchmen?”