“And what is to be done, Signore?” demanded the podesta, stopping short in the street.

“We must do as well as we can, under the circumstances.  My duty is to look out for ze Ving-and-Ving, and yours to look out for the town.  Should the stranger actually enter the bay and bring his broadside to bear on this steep hill, there is not a chamber window that will not open on the muzzles of his guns.  You will grant me permission to haul into the inner harbor, where we shall be sheltered by the buildings from his shot, and then perhaps it will be well enough to send my people into the nearest battery.  I look for bloodshed and confusion ere long.”

All this was said with so much apparent sincerity that it added to the podesta’s mystification.  Calling a neighbor to him, he sent the latter up the hill with a message to Andrea Barrofaldi, and then he hurried down toward the port, it being much easier for him, just at that moment, to descend than to ascend.  Raoul kept at his side, and together they reached the water’s edge.

The podesta was greatly addicted to giving utterance to any predominant opinion of the moment, being one of those persons who feel quite as much as they think.  On the present occasion he did not spare the frigate, for, having caught at the bait that his companion had so artfully thrown out to him, he was loud in the expression of his distrust.  All the signalling and showing of colors he now believed to be a republican trick; and precisely in proportion as he became resentful of the supposed fraud of the ship, was he disposed to confide blindly in the honesty of the lugger.  This was a change of sentiment in the magistrate; and, as in the case of all sudden but late conversions, he was in a humor to compensate for his tardiness by the excess of his zeal.  In consequence of this disposition and the character and loquacity of the man, all aided by a few timely suggestions on the part of Raoul, in five minutes it came to be generally understood that the frigate was greatly to be distrusted, while the lugger rose in public favor exactly in the degree in which the other fell.  This interposition of Vito Viti’s was exceedingly apropos, so far as le Feu-Follet and her people were concerned, inasmuch as the examination of and intercourse with the boat’s crew had rather left the impression of their want of nationality in a legal sense, than otherwise.  In a word, had not the podesta so loudly and so actively proclaimed the contrary, Tommaso and his fellows were about to report their convictions that these men were all bona fide wolves in sheep’s clothing—­alias Frenchmen.

“No, no—­amici miei,” said Vito Viti, bustling about on the narrow little quay, “all is not gold that glitters, of a certainty; and this frigate is probably no ally, but an enemy.  A very different matter is it with ze Ving-y-Ving and Il Signor Smees—­we may be said to know him—­have seen his papers, and the vice-governatore and myself have examined him, as it might be, on the history and laws of his island, for England is an island, neighbors, as well as Elba; another reason for respect and amity—­but we have gone over much of the literature and history of Inghilterra together and find everything satisfactory and right; therefore are we bound to show the lugger protection and love.”