of le Feu-Follet, the other
craft being too near to render any great effort of the voice necessary;
"what felucca is that? and why have you so great a drift?"

"La Bella Corsienne!" was the answer, in a patois, half French, half
Italian, as Raoul expected, if all were right. "We are bound into la
Padulella, and wish to keep in with the land to hold the breeze the
longer. We are no great sailer at the best, and have a drift, because we
are just now in the strength of the current.

"At this rate, you will come athwart my hawse. You know I am armed, and
cannot suffer that!"

"Ah, Signore, we are friends of the republic, and would not harm you if
we could. We hope you will not injure poor mariners like us. We will
keep away, if you please, and pass under your stern--"

This proposition was made so suddenly and so unexpectedly that Raoul had
not time to object; and had he been disposed to do so, the execution was
too prompt to allow him the means. The felucca fell broad off, and came
down almost in a direct line for the lugger's bows before the wind and
current, moving fast enough now to satisfy all Ithuel's scruples.

"Call all hands to repel boarders!" cried Raoul, springing aft to the
capstan and seizing his own arms--"Come up lively, _mes enfans!_--here
is treachery!"

These words were hardly uttered before Raoul was back on the heel of the
bowsprit, and the most active of his men--some five or six at
most--began to show themselves on deck. In that brief space, the felucca
had got within eighty yards, when, to the surprise of all in the lugger,
she luffed into the wind again and drifted down, until it was apparent
that she was foul of the lugger's cable, her stern swinging round
directly on the latter's starboard bow. At that instant, or just as the
two vessels came in actual contact, and Raoul's men were thronging
around him to meet the expected attack, the sound of oars, pulled for
life or death, were heard, and flames burst upward from the open hatch
of the coaster. Then a boat was dimly seen gliding away in a line with
the hull, by the glowing light.

"Un brulot!--un brulot!--a fire-ship!" exclaimed twenty voices together,
the horror that mingled in the cries proclaiming the extent of a danger
which is, perhaps, the most terrific that seamen can encounter.

But the voice of Raoul Yvard was not among them. The moment his eye
caught the first glimpse of the flames he disappeared from the bowsprit.
He might hav