“Nay—­nay, Raoul, do not—­refrain—­if thou really lov’st me, utter not this frightful blasphemy; tell me, rather, if thou didst not find the holy father as I describe him?”

“I found him a peaceful, venerable, and, I firmly believe, a good old man, Ghita; but only a man.  No infallibility could I see about him; but a set of roguish cardinals and other plotters of mischief, who were much better calculated to set Christians by the ears than to lead them to Heaven, surrounded his chair.”

“Say no more, Raoul—­I will listen to no more of this.  Thou knowest not these sainted men, and thy tongue is thine own enemy, without—­hark! what means that?”

“It is a gun from the frigate, and must be looked to; say, when and where do we meet again?”

“I know not, now.  We have been too long, much too long, together as it is; and must separate.  Trust to me to provide the means of another meeting; at all events, we shall shortly be in our tower again.”

Ghita glided away as she ceased speaking and soon disappeared in the town.  As for Raoul, he was at a loss for a moment whether to follow or not; then he hastened to the terrace in front of the government-house again, in order to ascertain the meaning of the gun.  The report had drawn others to the same place, and on reaching it the young man found himself in another crowd.

By this time the Proserpine, for Ithuel was right as to the name of the stranger, had got within a league of the entrance of the bay and had gone about, stretching over to its eastern shore, apparently with the intention to fetch fairly into it on the next tack.  The smoke of her gun was sailing off to leeward in a little cloud, and signals were again flying at her main-royal-mast-head.  All this was very intelligible to Raoul, it being evident at a glance that the frigate had reached in nearer both to look at the warlike lugger that she saw in the bay, and to communicate more clearly with her by signals.  Ithuel’s expedient had not sufficed; the vigilant Captain Cuffe, alias Sir Brown, who commanded the Proserpine, not being a man likely to be mystified by so stale a trick.  Raoul scarcely breathed as he watched the lugger in anticipation of her course.

Ithuel certainly seemed in no hurry to commit himself, for the signal had now been flying on board the frigate several minutes, and yet no symptoms of any preparation for an answer could be discovered.  At length the halyards moved, and then three fair, handsome flags rose to the end of le Feu-Follet’s jigger yard, a spar that was always kept aloft in moderate weather.  What the signal meant Raoul did not know, for though he was provided with signals by means of which to communicate with the vessels of war of his own nation, the Directory had not been able to supply him with those necessary to communicate with the enemy.  Ithuel’s ingenuity, however, had supplied the deficiency.  While serving on board the Proserpine, the very ship