At the very moment, then, when Raoul Yvard and Ghita parted on the hill, ’Maso was seated in his usual place at the table in Benedetta’s upper room, the windows of which commanded as full a view of the lugger as the hour permitted; that craft being anchored about a cable’s length distant, and, as a sailor might have expressed it, just abeam.  On this occasion he had selected the upper room, and but three companions, because it was his wish that as few should enter into his counsels as at all comported with the love of homage to his own experience.  The party had been assembled a quarter of an hour, and there had been time to cause the tide to ebb materially in the flask, which, it may be well to tell the reader at once, contained very little less than half a gallon of liquor, such as it was.

“I have told it all to the podesta,” said ’Maso, with an important manner, as he put down his glass, after potation the second, which quite equalled potation the first in quantity; “yes, I have told it all to Vito Viti, and no doubt he has told it to Il Signor Vice-governatore, who now knows as much about the whole matter as either of us four.  Cospetto!—­to think such a thing dare happen in a haven like Porto Ferrajo!  Had it come to pass over on the other side of the island, at Porto Longone, one wouldn’t think so much of it, for they are never much on the lookout:  but to take place here, in the very capital of Elba, I should as soon have expected it in Livorno!”

“But, ’Maso,” put in Daniele Bruno, in the manner of one who was a little sceptical, “I have often seen the pavilion of the Inglese, and this is as much like that which all their frigates and corvettes wear, as one of our feluccas is like another.  The flag, at least, is right.”

“What signifies a flag, Daniele, when a French hand can hoist an English ensign as easily as the king of Inghilterra himself?  If that lugger was not built by the Francese, you were not built by an Italian father and mother.  But I should not think so much of the hull, for that may have been captured, as the English take many of their enemies on the high seas; but look at the rigging and sails—­Santa Maria!  I could go to the shop of the very sailmaker, in Marseilles, who made that foresail!  His name is Pierre Benoit, and a very good workman he is, as all will allow who have had occasion to employ him.”

This particularity greatly aided the argument; common minds being seldom above yielding to the circumstances which are so often made to corroborate imaginary facts.  Tommaso Tonti, though so near the truth as to his main point—­the character of the visitor—­was singularly out as to the sail, notwithstanding; le Feu-Follet having been built, equipped, and manned at Nantes, and Pierre Benoit never having seen her or her foresail either; but it mattered not, in the way of discussion and assertion, one sailmaker being as good as another, provided he was French.