“I see only the Austrian that is worth the trouble of a movement,” quietly observed Raoul, whose eye was scanning the inner harbor, his own vessel lying two hundred yards without it, it will be remembered—­“and she is light, and would scarce pay for sending her to Toulon.  These feluccas would embarrass us, without affording much reward, and then their loss would ruin the poor devils of owners, and bring misery into many a family.”

“Well, that’s a new idee, for a privateer!” said Ithuel sneeringly; “luck’s luck, in these matters, and every man must count on what war turns up.  I wish you’d read the history of our revolution, and then you’d ha’ seen that liberty and equality are not to be had without some ups and downs in fortin’s and chances.”

“The Austrian might do,” added Raoul, who paid little attention to his companion’s remarks, “if he were a streak or two lower in the water—­but, after all, E-too-ell,”—­for so he pronounced the other’s name—­“I do not like a capture that is made without any eclat, or spirit, in the attack and defence.”

“Well,”—­this word Ithuel invariably pronounced, “wa-a-l”—­“well, to my notion, the most profitable and the most agreeable battles are the shortest; and the pleasantest victories are them in which there’s the most prize money, Howsever, as that brig is only an Austrian, I care little what you may detairmine to do with her; was she English, I’d head a boat myself, to go in and tow her out here, expressly to have the satisfaction of burning her.  English ships make a cheerful fire!”

“And that would be a useless waste of property, and perhaps of blood, and would do no one any good, Etoo_ell_.”

“But it would do the accursed English harm, and that counts for a something, in my reckoning.  Nelson wasn’t so over-scrupulous, at the Nile, about burning your ships, Mr. Rule—­”

“Tonnerre! why do you always bring in that malheureux Nile?—­Is it not enough that we were beaten—­disgraced—­destroyed—­that a friend must tell us of it so often?”

“You forget, Mr. Rule, that I was an inimy, then” returned Ithuel, with a grin and a grim smile.  “If you’ll take the trouble to examine my back, you’ll find on it the marks of the lashes I got for just telling my Captain that it was ag’in the grain for me, a republican as I was by idee and natur’, to fight other republicans.  He told, me he would first try the grain of my skin, and see how that would agree with what he called my duty; and I must own, he got the best on’t; I fit like a tiger ag’in you, rather than be flogged twice the same day.  Flogging on a sore back is an awful argument!”

“And now has come the hour of revenge, pauvre Etooell; this time you are on the right side, and may fight with heart and mind those you so much hate.”