The captain did not understand a word of English, but he seemed to catch what Miss Lydia was saying by the pursing up of her pretty mouth, and immediately entered upon an elaborate panegyric of his relative, which he wound up by declaring him to be a gentleman, belonging to a family of corporals, and that he would not be in the very least in the colonel’s way, for that he, the skipper, would undertake to stow him in some corner, where they should not be aware of his presence.

The colonel and Miss Nevil thought it peculiar that there should be Corsican families in which the dignity of corporal was handed down from father to son.  But, as they really believed the individual in question to be some infantry corporal, they concluded he was some poor devil whom the skipper desired to take out of pure charity.  If he had been an officer, they would have been obliged to speak to him and live with him; but there was no reason why they should put themselves out for a corporal—­who is a person of no consequence unless his detachment is also at hand, with bayonets fixed, ready to convey a person to a place to which he would rather not be taken.

“Is your kinsman ever sea-sick?” demanded Miss Nevil sharply.

“Never, mademoiselle, he is as steady as a rock, either on sea or land!”

“Very good then, you can take him,” said she.

“You can take him!” echoed the colonel, and they passed on their way.

Toward five o’clock in the evening Captain Mattei came to escort them on board the schooner.  On the jetty, near the captain’s gig, they met a tall young man wearing a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to his chin; his face was tanned, his eyes were black, brilliant, wide open, his whole appearance intelligent and frank.  His shoulders, well thrown back, and his little twisted mustache clearly revealed the soldier—­for at that period mustaches were by no means common, and the National Guard had not carried the habits and appearance of the guard-room into the bosom of every family.

When the young man saw the colonel he doffed his cap, and thanked him in excellent language, and without the slightest shyness, for the service he was rendering him.

“Delighted to be of use to you, my good fellow!” said the colonel, with a friendly nod, and he stepped into the gig.

“He’s not very ceremonious, this Englishman of yours,” said the young man in Italian, and in an undertone, to the captain.

The skipper laid his forefinger under his left eye, and pulled down the corners of his mouth.  To a man acquainted with the language of signs, this meant that the Englishman understood Italian, and was an oddity into the bargain.  The young man smiled slightly and touched his forehead, in answer to Mattei’s sign, as though to indicate that every Englishman had a bee in his bonnet.  Then he sat down beside them, and began to look very attentively, though not impertinently, at his pretty fellow-traveller.