“Most true, Signor Podesta,” answered Raoul from his boat; “and such being the case, I hasten to haul my vessel into the mouth of your basin, which I will defend against boats or any attempt of these rascally republicans to land.”

Waving his hand, the young sailor pulled quickly out of the crowded little port, followed by a hundred vivas.  Raoul now saw that his orders had not been neglected.  A small line had been run out from the lugger and fastened to a ring in the inner end of the eastern side of the narrow haven, apparently with the intention of hauling the vessel into the harbor itself.  He also perceived that the light anchor, or large kedge, by which le Feu-Follet rode, was under foot, as seamen term it; or that the cable was nearly “up and down.”  With a wave of the hand he communicated a new order, and then he saw that the men were raising the kedge from the bottom.  By the time his foot touched the deck, indeed, the anchor was up and stowed, and nothing held the vessel but the line that had been run to the quay.  Fifty pairs of hands were applied to this line, and the lugger advanced rapidly toward her place of shelter.  But an artifice was practised to prevent her heading into the harbor’s mouth, the line having been brought inboard abaft her larboard cathead, a circumstance which necessarily gave her a sheer in the contrary direction, or to the eastward of the entrance.  When the reader remembers that the scale on which the port had been constructed was small, the entrance scarce exceeding a hundred feet in width, he will better understand the situation of things.  Seemingly to aid the movement, too, the jigger was set, and the wind being south, or directly aft, the lugger’s motion was soon light and rapid.  As the vessel drew nearer to the entrance, her people made a run with the line and gave her a movement of some three or four knots to the hour, actually threatening to dash her bows against the pier-head.  But Raoul Yvard contemplated no such blunder.  At the proper moment the line was cut, the helm was put a-port, the lugger’s head sheered to starboard, and just as Vito Viti, who witnessed all without comprehending more than half that passed, was shouting his vivas and animating all near him with his cries, the lugger glided past the end of the harbor, on its outside, however, instead of entering it.  So completely was every one taken by surprise by this evolution that the first impression was of some mistake, accident, or blunder of the helmsman, and cries of regret followed, lest the frigate might have it in her power to profit by the mishap.  The flapping of canvas, notwithstanding, showed that no time was lost, and presently le Feu-Follet shot by an opening between the warehouses, under all sail.  At this critical instant the frigate, which saw what passed, but which had been deceived like all the rest, and supposed the lugger was hauling into the haven, tacked and came round with her head to the westward.  But intending to fetch well