Nay, he even went so far as to affirm that he had comprehended a portion of the documents exhibited by the “Signor Smees” himself; and as to “ze Ving-y-Ving,” any one acquainted in the least with the geography of the British Channel would understand that she was precisely the sort of craft that the semi-Gallic inhabitants of Guernsey and Jersey would be apt to send forth to cruise against the out-and-out Gallic inhabitants of the adjacent main.

During all these discussions, there was one heart in Porto Ferrajo that was swelling with the conflicting emotions of gratitude, disappointment, joy, and fear, though the tongue of its owner was silent.  Of all of her sex in the place, Ghita alone had nothing to conjecture, no speculation to advance, no opinion to maintain, nor any wish to express.  Still she listened eagerly, and it was not the least of her causes of satisfaction to find that her own hurried interviews with the handsome privateersman had apparently escaped observation.  At length her mind was fully lightened of its apprehensions, leaving nothing but tender regrets, by the return of the horsemen from the mountains.  These persons reported that the upper sails of the frigate were just visible in the northern board, so far as they could judge, even more distant than the island of Capraya, while the lugger had beaten up almost as far to windward as Pianosa, and then seemed disposed to stand over toward the coast of Corsica, doubtless with an intention to molest the commerce of that hostile island.

CHAPTER VII.

Ant.—­“And, indeed sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary.”

Clo.—­“Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.”

Ant.—­“I hope so, sir, for I have about me many parcels of change.”
                                       Winter’s Tale.

Such was the state of things at Porto Ferrajo at noon, or about the hour when its inhabitants bethought them of their mid-day meal.  With most the siesta followed, though the sea air, with its invigorating coolness, rendered that indulgence less necessary to these islanders than to most of their neighbors on the main.  Then succeeded the reviving animation of the afternoon, and the return of the zephyr, or the western breeze.  So regular, indeed, are these changes in the currents of the air during the summer months, that the mariner can rely with safety on meeting a light breeze from the southward throughout the morning, a calm at noon—­the siesta of the Mediterranean—­and the delightfully cool wind from the west, after three or four o’clock; this last is again succeeded at night by a breeze directly from the land.  Weeks at a time have we known this order of things to be uninterrupted; and when the changes did occasionally occur, it was only in the slight episodes of showers and thunderstorms, of which, however, Italy has far fewer than our own coast.