g in the conspicuous position named
were Raoul Yvard himself, and Ithuel Bolt. Their conversation was in
French, the part borne by the last being most execrably pronounced, and
paying little or no attention to grammar; but it is necessary that we
should render what was said by both into the vernacular, with the
peculiarities that belonged to the men.

"I see only the Austrian that is worth the trouble of a movement,"
quietly observed Raoul, whose eye was scanning the inner harbor, his own
vessel lying two hundred yards without it, it will be remembered--"and
she is light, and would scarce pay for sending her to Toulon. These
feluccas would embarrass us, without affording much reward, and then
their loss would ruin the poor devils of owners, and bring misery into
many a family."

"Well, that's a new idee, for a privateer!" said Ithuel sneeringly;
"luck's luck, in these matters, and every man must count on what war
turns up. I wish you'd read the history of _our_ revolution, and then
you'd ha' seen that liberty and equality are not to be had without some
ups and downs in fortin's and chances."

"The Austrian _might_ do," added Raoul, who paid little attention to his
companion's remarks, "if he were a streak or two lower in the
water--but, after all, E-too-_ell_,"--for so he pronounced the other's
name--"I do not like a capture that is made without any _eclat_, or
spirit, in the attack and defence."

"Well,"--this word Ithuel invariably pronounced, "wa-a-l"--"well, to my
notion, the most profitable and the most agreeable battles are the
shortest; and the pleasantest victories are them in which there's the
most prize money, Howsever, as that brig is only an Austrian, I care
little what you may detairmine to do with her; was she English, I'd head
a boat myself, to go in and tow her out here, expressly to have the
satisfaction of burning her. English ships make a cheerful fire!"

"And that would be a useless waste of property, and perhaps of blood,
and would do no one any good, Etoo_ell_."

"But it would do the accursed English _harm_, and that counts for a
something, in my reckoning. Nelson wasn't so over-scrupulous, at the
Nile, about burning your ships, Mr. Rule--"

"_Tonnerre!_ why do you always bring in that _malheureux _ Nile?--Is it
not enough that we were beaten--disgraced--destroyed--that a friend must
tell us of it so often?"

"You forget, Mr. Rule, that I was an _inimy, then_" returned Ithuel,
with a grin