The young man obeyed, every nerve in his body agitated by the sense of delinquency.  Then he walked aft, cast one look around him at the desperate condition of the lugger, and, with the impetuosity of character that belongs to his country, he plunged into the sea, from which his body never reappeared.  The melancholy suicide was immediately reported to Raoul.

“Bon “—­was the answer.  “Had he done it an hour earlier, le Feu-Follet would not have been set up on these rocks, like a vessel in a ship-yard—­mais, mes enfans, courage!—­We’ll yet see if our beautiful lugger cannot be saved.”

If there were stoicism and bitterness in this answer, there was not deliberate cruelty.  Raoul loved his lugger, next to Ghita, before all things on earth; and, in his eyes, the fault of wrecking her in a calm was to be classed among the unpardonable sins.  Still, it was by no means a rare occurrence.  Ships, like men, are often cast away by an excess of confidence; and our own coast, one of the safest in the known world for the prudent mariner to approach, on account of the regularity of its soundings, has many a tale to tell of disasters similar to this, which have occurred simply because no signs of danger were apparent.  Our hero would not have excused himself for such negligence, and that which self-love will not induce us to pardon will hardly be conceded to philanthropy.

The pumps were sounded, and it was ascertained that the lugger had come down so easily into her bed, and lay there with so little straining of her seams, that she continued tight as a bottle.  This left all the hope which circumstances would allow, of still saving the vessel.  Raoul neglected no useful precaution.  By this time the light was strong enough to enable him to see a felucca coming slowly down from Salerno, before the wind, or all that was still left of the night air, and he despatched Ithuel with an armed boat to seize her, and bring her alongside of the rocks.  He took this course with the double purpose of using the prize, if practicable, in getting his own vessel off, or, in the last resort, of making his own escape, and that of his people, in her to France.  He did not condescend to explain his motives, however; nor did any one presume to inquire into them.  Raoul was now strictly a commander, acting in a desperate emergency.  He even succeeded in suppressing the constitutional volubility of his countrymen, and in substituting for it the deep, attentive silence of thorough discipline; one of the great causes of his own unusual success in maritime enterprises.  To the want of this very silence and attention may be ascribed so many of those naval disasters which have undeniably befallen a people of singular enterprise and courage.  Those who wish them well will be glad to learn that the evil has been, in a great measure, repaired.