“Long or short, you’ll never make that out,” muttered the master.  “The Folly has more folly about her than I give her credit for, if we get another look at her this summer.”

“What do you make of him, Captain Cuffe?” Yelverton eagerly demanded.

“Just what I told you, sir—­’tis the lugger—­and—­I cannot be mistaken.—­Aye, by Jove, she is coming down before it, wing-and-wing, again!  That’s her play, just now, it would seem, and she does not appear to have got enough of it yet.”

An attentive look satisfied Yelverton that his commander was right.  Even the master had to confess his error, though he did it ungraciously and with reluctance.  It was the lugger, of a certainty, though so dimly seen as to render it difficult at moments, to trace her outlines at all.  She was running in a line that would carry her astern of the frigate about a mile, and she was rather more than thrice that distance to windward.

“She cannot see us,” said Cuffe, thoughtfully, “Beyond a doubt she thinks us to windward, and is endeavoring to get out of our neighborhood.  We must get round, gentlemen, and now is a favorable moment.  Tack ship, at once, Mr. Yelverton—­I think she’ll do it.”

The experiment was made, and it succeeded.  The Proserpine worked beautifully, and Yelverton knew how to humor her to a nicety.  In five minutes the ship was round, with everything trimmed on the other tack;—­close-reefed mizzen, and double-reefed fore and maintop-sails—­a reefed mainsail, with other sails to suit.  As she was kept a rap full, or a little off, indeed, to prevent the lugger from slipping past, she might have gone from five to six knots.

The next five minutes were intensely interesting to the people of the Proserpine.  The weather became thicker, and all traces of le Feu-Follet were lost.  Still, when last seen, she was wing-and-wing, flying rather than sailing down toward their own track.  By Cuffe’s calculation, the two vessels would nearly meet in less than a quarter of an hour, should neither alter her course.  Several guns were got ready, in preparation for such a rencontre.

“Let the weather hold thick a few minutes longer, and we have her!” cried Cuffe.  “Mr. Yelverton, you must go down and see to those guns yourself.  Plump it right into her, if you’re ordered to fire.  The fellow has no hamper, and stripping him must be a matter of pure accident.  Make it too hot for him on deck, and he’ll have to give up, Raoul Yvard or the d—­l!”

“There she is, sir!” shouted a midshipman from a cathead—­for everybody who dared had crowded forward to get an early look at the chase.