ied the
magistrate's eulogy, for it certainly flew as much ahead of the stranger
as the first had flown astern.

"There, Signore," cried Ghita eagerly, as she turned to the magistrate,
"they are about to hoist their ensign, for now they know your wishes.
The soldiers surely will not fire again!"

"That would be in the teeth of the law of nations, Signorina, and a blot
on Tuscan civilization. Ah! you perceive the artillerists are aware of
what you say, and are putting aside their tools. Cospetto! 'tis a
thousand pities, too, they couldn't fire the third shot, that you might
see it strike the lugger; as yet you have only beheld their
preparations."

"It is enough, Signor Podesta," returned Ghita, smiling, for she could
smile now that she saw the soldiers intended no further mischief; "we
have all heard of your Elba gunners, and what I _have_ seen convinces me
of what they can do, when there is occasion. Look, Signore! the lugger
is about to satisfy our curiosity."

Sure enough, the stranger saw fit to comply with the usages of nations.
It has been said, already, that the lugger was coming down before the
wind wing-and-wing, or with a sail expanded to the air on each side of
her hull, a disposition of the canvas that gives to the felucca, and to
the lugger in particular, the most picturesque of all their graceful
attitudes. Unlike the narrow-headed sails that a want of hands has
introduced among ourselves, these foreign, we might almost say
classical, mariners send forth their long pointed yards aloft, confining
the width below by the necessary limits of the sheet, making up for the
difference in elevation by the greater breadth of their canvas. The idea
of the felucca's sails, in particular, would seem to have been literally
taken from the wing of the large sea-fowl, the shape so nearly
corresponding that, with the canvas spread in the manner just mentioned,
one of those light craft has a very close resemblance to the gull or
the hawk, as it poises itself in the air or is sweeping down upon its
prey. The lugger has less of the beauty that adorns a picture, perhaps,
than the strictly latine rig; but it approaches so near it as to be
always pleasing to the eye, and, in the particular evolution described,
is scarcely less attractive. To the seaman, however, it brings with it
an air of greater service, being a mode of carrying canvas that will
buffet with the heaviest gales or the roughest seas, while it appears so
pleas