It must be allowed that the ruse of the felucca was well planned; and it now seemed about to be admirably executed.  Had it not been for Ithuel’s very positive knowledge of the ship—­his entire certainty of her being his old prison, as he bitterly called her—­it is not improbable that the lugger’s crew might have been the dupe of so much well-acted ingenuity; and as it was, opinions were greatly divided, Raoul himself being more than half disposed to fancy that his American ally, for once, was wrong, and that the ship in sight was actually what she professed to be—­a cruiser of the republic.

Both Winchester, who was in la Divina Providenza, and Griffin, who commanded the boats, played their parts in perfection.  They understood too well the character of the wily and practised foe with whom they had to deal, to neglect the smallest of the details of their well-concerted plan.  Instead of heading toward the lugger as soon as the chase commenced, the felucca appeared disposed to enter the bay and to find an anchorage under the protection of a small battery that had been planted for this express purpose near its head.  But the distance was so great as obviously to render such an experiment bootless; and, after looking in that direction a few minutes, the head of la Divina Providenza was laid off shore, and she made every possible effort to put herself under the cover of the lugger.  All this was done in plain view of Raoul, whose glass was constantly at his eye, and who studied the smallest movement with jealous distrust.  Winchester, fortunately for his purpose, was a dark-complexioned man of moderate stature and with bushy whiskers, such as a man-of-war’s-man is apt to cultivate on a long cruise; and, in his red Phrygian cap, striped shirt, and white cotton trousers, he looked the Italian as well as could have been desired.  The men in sight, too, had been selected for their appearance, several of them being actually foreigners, born on the shores of the Mediterranean; it being seldom indeed that the crew of an English or an American vessel of war does not afford a representation of half the maritime nations of the earth.  These men exhibited a proper degree of confusion and alarm, too, running to and fro as soon as the chase became lively; exerting themselves, but doing it without order and concert.  At length, the wind failing almost entirely, they got out two sweeps and began to pull lustily; the real as well as the apparent desire being to get as near as possible to the lugger.

“Peste!” exclaimed Raoul; “all this seems right—­what if the frigate should be French after all?  These men in the boats look like my brave compatriotes!”

“They are regular John Bulls,” answered Ithuel, positively, “and the ship is the spiteful Proserpyne,” for so the New Hampshire man always called his old prison.  “As for them French hats and the way they have of rowing, they act it all for a take-in.  Just let a six-pound shot in among ’em, and see how they’ll throw off their French airs and take to their English schooling.”