“Sa-a-c-r-r-r-e,” muttered Raoul between his teeth; “Etooell, if an Englishman, he may very well take it into his head to come in here, and perhaps anchor within half-a-cable’s length of us!  What think you of that, mon brave Americain?”

“That it may very well come to pass; though one hardly sees, either, what is to bring a cruiser into such a place as this.  Every one hasn’t the curiosity of a Jack-o’-Lantern.”

“Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere!—­Bien; we must take the weather as it comes; sometimes a gale, and sometimes a calm.  As he shows his own ensign so loyally, let us return the compliment, and show ours.  Hoist the ensign there aft.”

“Which one, Monsieur?” demanded an old, demure-looking quartermaster, who was charged with that duty, and who was never known to laugh; “the captain will remember we came into port under the drapeau of Monsieur Jean Bull.”

“Bien—­hoist the drapeau of Monsieur Jean Bull again.  We must brazen it out, now we have put on the mask.  Monsieur Lieutenant, clap on the hawser, and run the lugger ahead, over her anchor, and see everything clear for spreading our pocket-handkerchiefs.  No one knows when le Feu-Follet may have occasion to wipe her face.  Ah!—­now, Etooell, we can make out his broadside fairly, he is heading more to the westward.”

The two seamen levelled their glasses, and renewed their examinations.  Ithuel had a peculiarity that not only characterized the man, but which is so common among Americans of his class as in a sense to be national.  On ordinary occasions he was talkative, and disposed to gossip; but, whenever action and decision became necessary, he was thoughtful, silent, and, though in a way of his own, even dignified.  This last fit was on him, and he waited for Raoul to lead the conversation.  The other, however, was disposed to be as reserved as himself, for he quitted the knight-head, and took refuge from the splashing of the water used in washing the decks, in his own cabin.

Two hours, though they brought the sun, with the activity and hum of the morning, had made no great change in the relative positions of things within and without the bay.  The people of le Feu-Follet had breakfasted, had got everything on board their little craft in its proper place, and were moody, observant, and silent.  One of the lessons that Ithuel had succeeded in teaching his shipmates was to impress on them the necessity of commanding their voluble propensities if they would wish to pass for Englishmen.  It is certain, more words would have been uttered in this little lugger in one hour, had her crew been indulged to the top of their bent, than would have been uttered in an English first-rate in two; but the danger of using their own language, and the English peculiarity of grumness, had been so thoroughly taught them, that her people rather caricatured, than otherwise, ce grand talent pour le silence that was thought