All this time the Proserpine had not been idle.  As soon as she discovered that the lugger was endeavoring to escape, her rigging was alive with men.  Sail after sail was set, one white cloud succeeding another, until she was a sheet of canvas from her trucks to her bulwarks.  Her lofty sails taking the breeze above the adjacent coast, her progress was swift, for this particular frigate had the reputation of being one of the fastest vessels in the English marine.

It was just twenty minutes by Andrea Barrofaldi’s watch after le Feu-Follet passed the spot where he stood, when the Proserpine came abreast of it.  Her greater draught of water induced her to keep half a mile from the promontory, but she was so near as to allow a very good opportunity to examine her general construction and appearance as she went by.  The batteries were now manned, and a consultation was held on the propriety of punishing a republican for daring to come so near a Tuscan port.  But there flew the respected and dreaded English ensign; and it was still a matter of doubt whether the stranger were friend or enemy.  Nothing about the ship showed apprehension, and yet she was clearly chasing a craft which, coming from a Tuscan harbor, an Englishman would be bound to consider entitled to his protection rather than to his hostility.  In a word, opinions were divided, and when that is the case, in matters of this nature, decision is obviously difficult.  Then, if a Frenchman, she clearly attempted no injury to any on the island; and those who possessed the power to commence a fire were fully aware how much the town lay exposed, and how little benefit might be expected from even a single broadside.  The consequence was that the few who were disposed to open on the frigate, like the two or three who had felt the same disposition toward the lugger, were restrained in their wishes, not only by the voice of superior authority, but by that of numbers.

In the mean while the Proserpine pressed on, and in ten minutes more she was not only out of the range, but beyond the reach of shot.  As she opened the bay west of the town le Feu-Follet was seen from her decks, fully a league ahead, close on a wind, the breeze hauling round the western end of the island, glancing through the water at a rate that rendered pursuit more than doubtful.  Still the ship persevered, and in little more than an hour from the time she had crowded sail she was up with the western extremity of the hills, through more than a mile to the leeward.  Here she met the fair southern breeze, uninfluenced by the land, as it came through the pass between Corsica and Elba, and got a clear view of the work before her.  The studding-sails and royals had been taken in twenty minutes earlier; the bowlines were now all hauled, and the frigate was brought close upon the wind.  Still the chase was evidently hopeless, the little Feu-Follet having everything as much to her mind as if she had ordered the weather expressly