see fit to stir tack or sheet, as it is termed among seamen. Le
Feu-Follet remained so stationary that, had she been by compass from
any station on the shore, her direction would not have varied a degree
the whole time. But this hour of comparative breeze sufficed to enable
Winchester to get out of the harbor with la Divina Providenza, the
felucca he had hired, and to round the promontory, under the seeming
protection of the guns by which it was crowned; coming in view of the
lugger precisely as the latter relieved her man at the helm for ten
o'clock. There were eight or nine men visible on the felucca's deck, all
dressed in the guise of Italians, with caps and striped shirts of
cotton. Thirty-five men were concealed in the hold.

Thus far everything was favorable to the wishes of Captain Cuffe and his
followers. The frigate was about a league from the lugger, and half that
distance from la Divina Providenza; the latter had got fairly to sea and
was slowly coming to a situation from which it might seem reasonable and
a matter of course for the Proserpine to send boats in chase; while the
manner in which she gradually drew nearer to the lugger was not such as
to excite distrust or to appear in the least designed. The wind, too,
had got to be so light as to favor the whole scheme.

It is not to be supposed that Raoul Yvard and his followers were
unobservant of what was passing. It is true that the latter wilfully
protracted his departure, under the pretence that it was safer to have
his enemy in sight during the day, knowing how easy it would be to elude
him in the dark; but, in reality, that he might prolong the pleasure of
having Ghita on board; and it is also true that he had passed a
delightful hour that morning in the cabin; but, then, his understanding
eye noted the minutest fact that occurred, and his orders were always
ready to meet any emergency that might arise. Very different was the
case with Ithuel. The Proserpine was his bane; and, even while eating
his breakfast, which he took on the heel of the bowsprit, expressly with
that intent, his eye was seldom a minute off the frigate, unless it was
for the short period she was shut in by the land. It was impossible for
any one in the lugger to say whether her character was or was not known
in Porto Ferrajo; but the circumstance of the blue-lights burnt in the
government-house itself, and witnessed by Ithuel, rendered the latter,
to say the least, probable, and in