The Wing-and-Wing Part 18

Cuffe read this report over twice; then he sent for Griffin, to whom he read it aloud, glancing his eye meaningly at his subordinate, when he came to the part where he spoke of the young man's good conduct.

"So much for that d----d Jack-o'-Lantern, Griffin! I fancy it will lead no one else on a wild-goose chase."

"I trust not, sir. Will you allow me to suggest a slight alteration in the spelling of the lugger's name, Captain Cuffe; the clerk can make it when he writes out the letter fairly."

"Aye--I dare say it is different from what _we_ would have it; French spelling being no great matter in general. Put it as you please; though Nelson has as great a contempt for their boasted philosophy and learning as I have myself. I fancy you will find all the English spelt right. How do _you_ write their confounded gibberish?"

"Feu-Follet, sir, p.r.o.nouncing the last part of it fol-_lay_; not fol-_ly_. I was thinking of asking leave, Captain Cuffe, to take one of the cutters and pull up to the lugger's anchorage and see if anything can be found of her wreck. The ship will hardly get under way until the westerly wind comes."

"No; probably not. I will order my gig manned, and we'll go together.

Poor Winchester must keep house awhile; so there is no use in asking him. I saw no necessity for putting Nelson into a pa.s.sion by saying anything about the exact amount of our loss in that boat sc.r.a.pe, Griffin."

"I agree with you, sir, that it is best as it is. 'Some loss' covers everything--it means 'more or less.'"

"That was just my notion. I dare say there may have been twenty women in the lugger."

"I can't answer for the number, sir; but I heard female singing as we got near in the fire-ship, and think 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 a.s.sented, 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 anch.o.r.ed, 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 c.o.c.k may have been left open--a circ.u.mstance 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 princ.i.p.al 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-sh.o.r.e here."

After two or three hours pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e, but had been persuaded by Griffin not to venture.

"There must be woodc.o.c.k in that wet ground, Griffin," he said, as he reluctantly yielded a little in his intention; "and Winchester would fancy a bird exceedingly in a day or two. I never was. .h.i.t in my life that I did not feel a desire for game after the fever was gone. Snipe, too, must live on the banks of that stream. Snipe are coming in season now, Griffin?"

"It's more likely, sir, that some of the privateersmen have got ash.o.r.e on planks and empty casks, and are prowling about in the weeds, watching our boats. Three or four of them would be too much for you, Captain Cuffe, as the scoundrels all carry knives as long as ship's cutla.s.ses."

"I suppose your notion may be true; and I shall have to give it up. Pull back to the frigate, Davy, and we'll be off after some more of these French ragam.u.f.fins."

This settled the matter. In half an hour the boats were swinging at the Proserpine's quarters; and three hours later the ship was under her canvas, standing slowly off the land. That day, however, the zephyr was exceedingly light, and the sun set just as the ship got the small island of Pianosa abeam; when the air came from the northward, and the ship's head was laid in to the eastward; the course lying between the land just mentioned and that of Elba. All night the Proserpine was slowly fanning her way along the south side of the latter island, when, getting the southerly air again in the morning, she reappeared in the Ca.n.a.l of Piombino as the day advanced, precisely as she had done before, when first introduced to the acquaintance of the reader. Cuffe had given orders to be called, as usual, when the light was about to return; it being a practice with him, in that active and pregnant war, to be on deck at such moments, in order to ascertain, with his own eyes, what the fortunes of the night had brought within his reach.

"Well, Mr. Griffin," he said, as soon as he had received the salutation of the officer of the watch, "you have had a still night of it. Yonder is the Point of Piombino, I see; and here we have got Elba and this little rocky island again on our larboard hand. One day is surprisingly like another about these times, for us mariners in particular."

"Do you really think so, Captain Cuffe?--Now, to my notion, this day hasn't had its equal on the Proserpine's log, since we got hold of l'Epervier and her convoy. You forget, sir, that we destroyed le Feu-Follet last night!"

"Aye--that is something--especially for _you_, Griffin. Well, Nelson will hear of it by mail as soon as we can get into Leghorn, which will be immediately after I have had an opportunity of communicating with these people in Porto Ferrajo. After all that has pa.s.sed, the least we can do is to let your veechy-govern-the-tories know of our success."

"Sail, ho!" shouted the lookout, on the foretopsail-yard.

The two officers turned, and gazed round them in every direction, when the captain made the customary demand of "Where-away?"

"Here, sir, close aboard of us, on our larboard hand, and on our weather quarter."

"On our weather quarter! D--n me if that _can_ be true, Griffin. There is nothing but the island there. The fellow cannot have mistaken this little island for the hull of a ship?"

"If he has, sir," answered Griffin, laughing, "it must be for a twenty-decker. That is Ben Brown aloft, and he is as good a lookout as we have in the ship."

"Do you see her, sir?" demanded Ben Brown, looking over his shoulder to put the question.

"Not a bit of her," cried Cuffe. "You must be dreaming, fellow. What does she look like?"

"There, this small island shuts her in from the deck, sir. She is a lugger; and looks as much like the one we burnt last night, sir, as one of our catheads is like t'other."

"A lugger!" exclaimed Cuffe. "What, another of the blackguards! By Jove!

I'll go aloft and take a look for myself. It's ten to one that I see her from the maintop."

In three minutes more, Captain Cuffe was in the top in question; having pa.s.sed through the lubber-hole, as every sensible man does, in a frigate, more especially when she stands up for want of wind. That was an age in which promotion was rapid, there being few gray-bearded lieutenants, then, in the English marine; and even admirals were not wanting who had not cut all their wisdom-teeth. Cuffe, consequently, was still a young man; and it cost him no great effort to get up his ship's ratlins in the manner named. Once in the top, he had all his eyes about him. For quite a minute he stood motionless, gazing in the direction that had been pointed out by Ben Brown. All this time Griffin stood on the quarter-deck, looking quite as intently at his superior as the latter gazed at the strange sail. Then Cuffe deigned to cast a glance literally beneath him, in order to appease the curiosity which, he well understood, it was so natural for the officer of the watch to feel.

Griffin did not dare to ask his _captain_ what he saw; but he looked a volume of questions on the interesting subject.

"A sister corsair, by Jupiter Ammon!" cried Cuffe; "a _twin_ sister, too; for they _are_ as much alike as one cathead is like another. More too, by Jove, if I am any judge."

"What will you have us do, Captain Cuffe?" inquired the lieutenant. "We are now going to leeward, all the while, I don't know, sir, that there is positively a current here, but--"

"Very well, sir--very well--haul up on the larboard tack, as soon as possible, and get the larboard batteries clear. We may have to cripple the chap in order to get hold of him."

As this was said, Cuffe descended through the same lubber-hole and soon appeared on deck. The ship now became a scene of activity and bustle.

All hands were called, and the guns were cleared away by some, while others braced the yards, according to the new line of sailing.

The reader would be greatly aided, in understanding what is to follow, could he, perchance, cast a look at a map of the coast of Italy. He will there see that the eastern side of the Island of Elba runs in a nearly north and south direction, Piombino lying off about north-northeast from its northern extremity. Near this northern extremity lies the little rocky islet so often mentioned, or the spot which Napoleon, fifteen years later, selected as the advanced redoubt of his insular empire. Of course the Proserpine was on one side of this islet and the strange lugger on the other. The first had got so far through the Ca.n.a.l as to be able to haul close upon the wind, on the larboard tack, and yet to clear the islet; while the last was just far enough to windward, or sufficiently to the southward, to be shut out from view from the frigate's decks by the intervening rocks. As the distance from the islet to the island did not much exceed a hundred or two yards, Captain Cuffe hoped to inclose his chase between himself and the land, never dreaming that the stranger would think of standing through so narrow and rocky a pa.s.s. He did not know his man, however, who was Raoul Yvard; and who had come this way from Bastia, in the hope of escaping any further collision with his formidable foe. He had seen the frigate's lofty sails above the rock as soon as it was light; and, being under no hallucination on the subject of _her_ existence, he knew her at a glance. His first order was to haul everything as flat as possible; and his great desire was to get from under the lee of the mountains of Elba into this very pa.s.s, through which the wind drew with more force than it blew anywhere near by.

As the Proserpine was quite a league off in the Ca.n.a.l, le Feu-Follet, which sailed so much the fastest in light winds, had abundance of time to effect her object. Instead of avoiding the narrow pa.s.s between the two islands, Raoul glided boldly into it; and by keeping vigilant eyes on his fore-yard, to apprise him of danger, he succeeded in making two stretches in the strait itself, coming out to the southward on the starboard tack, handsomely clearing the end of the islet at the very instant the frigate appeared on the other side of the pa.s.s. The lugger had now an easy task of it; for she had only to watch her enemy, and tack in season, to keep the islet between them, since the English did not dare to carry so large a ship through so narrow an opening. This advantage Raoul did not overlook, and Cuffe had gone about twice, closing each time nearer and nearer to the islet, before he was satisfied that his guns would be of no service until he could at least weather the intervening object, after which they would most probably be useless in so light a wind by the distance between them and their enemy.

"Never mind, Mr. Griffin; let this scamp go," said the captain, when he made this material discovery; "it is pretty well to have cleared the seas of one of them. Besides, we do not know that this _is_ an enemy at all. He showed no colors, and seems to have just come out of Porto Ferrajo, a friendly haven."

"Raoul Yvard did _that_, sir, not once, but twice," muttered Yelverton, who, from the circ.u.mstance that he had not been employed in the different attempts on le Feu-Follet, was one of the very few dissentients in the ship touching her fate, "These twins _are_ exceedingly alike; especially _Pomp_, as the American negro said of his twin children."

This remark pa.s.sed unheeded; for so deep was the delusion, in the ship, touching the destruction of the privateer, it would have been as hopeless an attempt to try to persuade her officers, and people generally, that le Feu-Follet was not burned, as it would be to induce a "great nation" to believe that it had any of the weaknesses and foibles that confessedly beset smaller communities. The Proserpine was put about again, and, setting her ensign, she stood into the bay of Porto Ferrajo, anchoring quite near the place that Raoul had selected for the same purpose on two previous occasions. The gig was lowered, and Cuffe, accompanied by Griffin as an interpreter, landed to pay the usual visit of ceremony to the authorities.

The wind being so light, several hours were necessary to effect all these changes; and by the time the two officers were ascending the terraced street the day had advanced sufficiently to render the visit suitable as to time. Cuffe appearing in full uniform, with epaulettes and sword, his approach attracted notice; and Vito Viti hurried off to apprise his friend of the honor he was about to receive. The vice-governatore was not taken by surprise, therefore, but had some little time to prepare his excuses for being the dupe of a fraud as impudent as that which Raoul Yvard had so successfully practised on him.

The reception was dignified, though courteous; and it had none the less of ceremony, from the circ.u.mstance that all which was said by the respective colloquists had to be translated before it could be understood. This circ.u.mstance rendered the few first minutes of the interview a little constrained; but each party having something on his mind, of which it was his desire to be relieved, natural feeling soon got the better of forms.

"I ought to explain to you, Sir Cuffe, the manner in which a recent event occurred in our bay here," observed the vice-governatore; "since, without such explanation, you might be apt to consider us neglectful of our duties, and unworthy of the trust which the Grand Duke reposes in us. I allude, as you will at once understand, to the circ.u.mstance that le Feu-Follet has twice been lying peaceably under the guns of our batteries, while her commander, and, indeed, some of her crew, have been hospitably entertained on sh.o.r.e."

"Such things must occur in times like these, Mr. Veechy-Governatory; and we seamen set them down to the luck of war," Cuffe answered graciously, being much too magnanimous, under his own success, to think of judging others too harshly. "It might not be so easy to deceive a man-of-war's-man like myself; but I dare say, Veechy-Governatory, had it been anything relating to the administration of your little island here, even Monsieur Yvard would have found you too much for him!"

The reader will perceive that Cuffe had got a new way of p.r.o.nouncing the appellation of the Elban functionary; a circ.u.mstance that was owing to the desire we all have, when addressing foreigners, to speak in their own language rather than in our own. The worthy captain had no more precise ideas of what a _vice_-governor means than the American people just now seem to possess of the signification of _vice_-president; but, as he had discovered that the word was p.r.o.nounced "veechy" in Italian, he was quite willing to give it its true sound; albeit a smile struggled round the mouth of Griffin while he listened.

"You do me no more than justice, Signor Kooffe, or Sir Kooffe, as I presume I ought to address you," answered the functionary; "for, in matters touching our duties on sh.o.r.e here, we are by no means as ignorant as on matters touching your honorable calling. This Raoul Yvard presented himself to me in the character of a British officer, one I esteem and respect; having audaciously a.s.sumed the name of a family of high condition and of great power, I believe, among your people--"

"Ah--the barone!" exclaimed Cuffe, who, having discovered by his intercourse with the southern Italians that this word meant a "rascal"

as well as a "baron," was fond of using it on suitable occasions. "Pray, Veechy-Governatory, what name did he a.s.sume? Ca'endish, or Howard, or Seymour, or some of those great n.o.bs, Griffin, I'll engage! I wonder that he spared Nelson!"

"No, Signore, he took the family appellation of another ill.u.s.trious race. The republican corsair presented himself before me as a Sir Smees--the son of a certain Milordo Smees."

"Smees--Smees--Smees!--I've no recollection of any such name in the peerage. It can't be Seymour that the Veechy means!--_That_ is a great name, certainly; and some of them have been in the service; it is possible this barone may have had the impudence to hail for a Seymour!"

"I rather think not, Captain Cuffe. 'Smees' is very much as an Italian would p.r.o.nounce 'Smith,' as, you know, the French call it 'Smeet.' It will turn out that this Mr. Raoul has seized upon the first English name he fell in with, as a man overboard clutches at a spar adrift or a life-buoy; and that happened to be 'Smith.'"

"Who the devil ever heard of a my lord Smith! A pretty sort of aristocracy we should have, Griffin, if it were made up of such fellows!"