This understood, at once my excellent and most practical uncle turned to business.  Within ten minutes it was agreed between us that the Gauntlet should sail back with General Paoli and anchor under the batteries of Isola Rossa to await our return.  She was to wait there one month exactly.  If within that time we did not return, he was to conclude either that our enterprise had come to grief or that we had re-shaped our designs and without respect to the Gauntlet’s movements.  In any event, at the end of one calendar month he might count himself free to weigh anchor for England.  We next discussed the Queen.  My uncle opined, but could not say with certainty, that the General had it in mind to offer her protection and an honourable retirement on her own estates above the Taravo.  I bade him tell her that, if she could wean herself from Corsica to follow her daughter, our house of Constantine would be proud to lodge her—­I hoped, for the remainder of her days—­for certain, until she should tire of it and us.

The rest (I say) we left to chance, which at first served us smoothly.  The breeze, though it continued fair, fell light soon after daybreak, and noon was well past before we sighted the Ligurian coast.  We dowsed sail and pulled towards it leisurably, waiting for the hour when the fishing-boats should put out from Porto Fino:  which they did towards sunset, running out by ones and two’s before the breeze which then began to draw off the land, and making a pretty moving picture against the evening glow.  When night had fallen we hoisted our lateen again and worked up towards them.

These fishermen (as I reasoned, from our own Cornish practice) would shoot their nets soon after nightfall and before the moon’s rising—­ to haul them, perhaps, two hours later, and await the approach of morning for their second cast.  Towards midnight, then, we sailed boldly up to the outermost boat and spoke her through Marc’antonio, who (fas est ab hoste doceri) had in old campaigns picked up enough of the Genoese patois to mimic it very passably.  He announced us as sent by certain Genoese fishmongers—­a new and enterprising firm whose name he invented on the spur of the moment—­to trade for the first catch of fish and carry them early to market, where their freshness would command good prices.  The fishermen, at first suspicious, gave way at sight of the Genoese money in his hand, and accepted an offer which not only saved them a journey but (as we calculated) put from three to four extra livres in their pockets.  Within twenty minutes they had transferred two thousand fish to our boat, and we sailed off into the darkness, ostensibly to trade with the others.  Doubtless they wished us good night for a set of fools.

We did not trouble their fellows.  Two thousand fish, artfully spread to look like thrice the number, ought to pass us under the eyes of all Genoa:  so for Genoa we headed forthwith, hauling up on the starboard tack and heeling to our gunwale under the breeze which freshened and blew steadily off the shore.