it likely there may have been that
number. The lugger was full-manned; for they were like bees swarming on
her forecastle when we were dropping foul. I saw Raoul Yvard by the
light of the fire as plainly as I now see you, and might have picked him
off with a musket; but that would hardly have been honorable."

To this Cuffe assented, and then he led the way on deck, having
previously ordered the boats manned. The two officers proceeded to the
spot where they supposed the Feu-Follet had been anchored, and rowed
round for near an hour, endeavoring to find some traces of her wreck on
the bottom. Griffin suggested that, when the magazine was drowned, in
the hurry and confusion of the moment, the cock may have been left
open--a circumstance that might very well have carried down the bottom
of so small a vessel in two or three hours; more especially after her
hull had burnt to the water's edge. The next thing was to find this
bottom, by no means a hopeless task, as the waters of the Mediterranean
are usually so clear that the eye can penetrate several fathoms, even
off the mouth of the Golo--a stream that brought more or less debris
from the mountains. It is scarcely necessary to say that the search was
not rewarded with success, the Feu-Follet being, just at that time, snug
at anchor at Bastia, where her people had already taken out her wounded
mainmast, with a view to step a new one in its place. At that very
moment, Carlo Giuntotardi, his niece, and Raoul Yvard were walking up
the principal street of the town, the place standing on a hill, like
Porto Ferrajo, perfectly at their ease as regards fire-ships, English
frigates, and the dangers of the seas. But all this was a profound
mystery to Cuffe and his companions, who had long been in the habit of
putting the most favorable constructions on the results of their
professional undertakings, and certainly not altogether without reason;
and who nothing doubted that le Feu-Follet had, to use their own
language, "laid her bones somewhere along-shore here."

After two or three hours passed in fruitless search Cuffe determined to
return to his ship. He was a keen sportsman and had brought a
fowling-piece with him in his gig, with a half-formed design of landing
and whiling away the time, until the westerly wind came, among some
marshes that he saw near the shore, but had been persuaded by Griffin
not to venture.

"There must be woodcock in that wet ground, Griffin," he said, as