Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Fifteen.A Night Attack upon the Chateau.For the next two days, matters went on at the chateau much as usual. Old Maria was as sedulously attentive as ever, her sole occupation being apparently the preparation of tempting and strengthening dishes for my consumption, and the concoction of tonic herbal medicines which she administered with relentless severity.The weather continued gloriously fine, enabling me to be in the open air the greater portion of each day; and although the count was absent, his beautiful daughter more than supplied his place, as far at least as I was concerned; so that, what with judicious nursing and nourishment, plenty of easy exercise in the delicious bracing mountain air, and the delightful society of Francesca Paoli, I was rapidly gaining both in health and spirits.On the second evening after my conversation with Count Lorenzo respecting the man whom he called Matteo Bartolozzi, Francesca and I were slowly returning to the house, after a somewhat longer walk than usual, when we were startled by the sound of a horse approaching at a rapid gallop behind us. Turning round, we saw that it was the count.He reined up when alongside of us, and, gaily saluting us, dismounted, and walked the rest of the distance to the house with us. When we reached the broad terrace in front of the chateau, he handed over his still panting horse to one of the servants, and, placing an arm in mine, dismissed his daughter, saying he had an important communication to make to me.The moment that Francesca was fairly out of ear-shot he turned to me and said,—“I received about an hour ago an intimation that a party of French soldiers are on their way here, for the purpose of arresting me, on suspicion of conspiring with the insurgents against the French government, and I was also informed that authority had been given to the officer in command to take me by force, should I refuse to surrender myself and accompany them quietly. I at once set out to return here, galloping all the way, and on reaching the cross roads about six miles from here, I saw approaching along the Ajaccio road a detachment of infantry, which I have not the least doubt is the party referred to. I have quite made up my mind not to surrender; it would be simply throwing away my life to do so with the existing state of feeling of the French towards us Corsicans. I should doubtless be subjected to the ceremony of a trial, but it would be quite a mock affair; my doom is probably already fixed. I shall therefore defend the chateau as long as its walls will hold together, and I do not quite despair of doing so successfully, although my garrison will be but a weak one—I do not suppose I can muster more than twenty people all told, and they by no means reliable if it comes to a downright hand-to-hand tussle. The question is, what are we to do with you? Should we fail, and you again fall into the hands of the French, your fate is sealed, they will assuredly hang you as a spy on the nearest tree.”“May I venture to ask, count, what are your intentions with regard to your daughter?” said I.He turned deadly pale for an instant, then the blood rushed furiously to his head, his face crimsoned, his eyes sparkled vindictively, and the veins of his forehead stood out like knotted cords as he hoarsely ejaculated,—“The man who lays a hand upon her must pass over my dead body; and let me tell you, Signor Inglese, I shall not die easily; much French blood will flow before I fall.”“Unless an unlucky bullet happens to strike you fairly in the forehead, early in the fight,” I suggested.“And do you imagine that I shall be imbecile enough to expose myself in so reckless a fashion as to render that probable?” he returned. “No! If I fight, it will be for life, not for glory, therefore I shall take every reasonable precaution to protect my life.”“Still,” I persisted, “in the excitement of a fight prudence is sometimes forgotten for a brief space. Would it not be advisable to take any measures that may be possible to secure a retreat, should such unhappily become necessary?”The count made no reply for a full minute, during which we continued to pace the terrace in the deepening twilight. Then he turned to me and said,—“I wonder whether you will understand me if I say, that, as far asIam concerned, retreat is quite impossible. If I once come into collision with the French, I must either conquer or die; there is, for me, no middle course.”“Then that settles the question, as far you are concerned,” I replied. “Is it imperative that your daughter should also die, in the event of our sustaining a defeat?”“She must either die or fall into the hands of the French,” replied the count sternly; “and with the fate of poor Bell’ Demonio fresh in our memories, neither she nor I would for an instant hesitate as to which alternative to accept. I would send her away to seek shelter with some friend, but her presence, if discovered, would only compromise that friend irretrievably, as well as prove fatal to herself. Besides, to speak the truth, there is so much treachery existing among us that I dare not run the risk. If your ship were only within reach, I think I dare trust Francesca on board her; she would at least be safe from the French, and I have no doubt your captain would afford her temporary protection, until other arrangements could be made.”“That he would, I am certain,” I replied eagerly, “I can certainly venture to promise so much in his behalf. Unfortunately, however, the ‘Juno’ is now at the north end of the island, and the only safe means—or rather theleast dangerousmeans of reaching her seems to me to be by water. I have come to the conclusion that that is the way by which I shall have to go, and if you felt you could confide Miss Francesca to my protection, I should be only too happy to have the opportunity to—to—”“Make love to her on the way, eh?” interrupted the count, with a smile. “Nay, never blush and look confused, my boy. Do you think that, because I have not seen much of you for the last few days, I am altogether blind? I know, just as well as you do, that you two children fancy yourselves in love with each other; and were you a few years older I might have somewhat to say in the matter; as it is, you are both too young for me to take any serious notice of it. However, that is not now the question. Do you really think you could safely convey my daughter to the north end of the island, and place her, not on board your ship, but in the care of her aunt, my brother’s wife? You are a seaman, I know, and are doubtless skilled in your profession; but how would you proceed? It would be perfect madness to attempt engaging a vessel to convey you along the coast, the reward for delivering you both over to the French authorities would be an irresistible temptation to the fishermen or coasters.”“I should not dream of running so serious a risk,” I replied. “My plan is very simple. I should make for Ajaccio, timing myself to reach the place about two or three o’clock in the morning, seize the most promising-looking boat I could find, and make sail in her. The only difficulty would be with my wounded arm, which is at present quite useless, but I dare say—”“If that is your only difficulty,” again interrupted the count, “it may be easily overcome. I would send one of my people with you, a man whom I can implicitly trust, and who has moreover had some experience on board the small craft which trade along the coast.”“Not Matteo, I hope?” said I.“No, not Matteo,” replied the count. “You are prejudiced against him, and would probably refuse to take him. The man I am thinking of is called Giaccomo—he is one of the under-gardeners.”“I should like to see the man,” said I; “but in the meantime had we not better make what preparations we can to defend the chateau, as well as to secure a retreat, should such be necessary?”“By all means,” said the count. “Let us first go to the stables, and arrange the means for your escape, should it be necessary, and then we will go round the chateau together, and see what can be done in the matter of defending it.”We turned away and walked round to the stables, in which stood ten fine horses. These, the count ordered to be removed at once to a place which he called the Elfin Grotto, giving instructions that the three which were considered to be the fleetest were to be saddled and bridled ready for instant use, Francesca’s saddle being required for one of them. He also hunted out Giaccomo—who looked a smart honest fellow enough—and ordered him to go with the horses to the grotto, holding himself in readiness for a lengthened journey at a moment’s notice, and that he was to understand he was under my immediate orders, to do whatever I might require of him.We then retired to the interior of the chateau, to examine into its capabilities of defence, and, as much to get her out of the way as for any other reason, Francesca was directed to prepare a small package of clothing, such as would serve her for a week or so, her father informing her that it might be necessary for her to leave the chateau for a short time, and that in such an event I had undertaken to escort her to a place of safety.This done, we made a careful examination of each floor of the building, beginning with the lowest or ground floor. The chateau was built in the Italian style of architecture, and consisted of two wings and a lofty central tower. The windows of the lower floor reached from near the ceiling right down to the ground, and gave access, by means of a row of three steps, directly to the rooms from the broad terrace along the front. These windows were protected by strong solid shutters of oak which were arranged to be fastened on the inside with three heavy iron bars, one at the top, one half-way down, and one at the bottom. The door was a very solid and substantial affair of oak thickly studded with nails, and was so well provided with massive bolts that I felt confident of its power to resist anything except artillery. This completed the defences of the lower floor, so far as the front was concerned. The back we had very little fear about; a high and solid stone wall surmounted by a formidablechevaux-de-friseextending for about thirty yards from each wing, and then stretching back far enough to enclose the stables and other offices, as well as a spacious kitchen-garden. The windows of the next two floors were quite unprotected; and the count therefore gave immediate orders to have all the available beds, mattresses, cushions, etcetera, piled up along the lower portion of each window, just high enough to protect a person when kneeling on the floor. The grand staircase, which was the only one accessible from the front entrance, was also strongly barricaded in three or four places, a sort of breastwork being constructed on the first landing, behind which the defenders might shelter themselves from the fire of an attacking party below. This done, nothing remained but to collect the arms and ammunition, muster the attendants, and await the development of events.We had not very long to wait. Evening had closed down upon us and deepened into night during the progress of our preparations, and the count and I were watching from one of the windows the exquisitely beautiful spectacle afforded by a clear moonrise, when we observed some moving objects among the deep shadows cast by the trees of the distant avenue, and, once or twice, the cold gleam of steel where the mellow rays of the moon penetrated through the overarching branches. Presently a small group of figures emerged from the shadows of the trees and approached along the central drive which led up to the broad expanse of flower-beds beyond the terrace. As they came nearer, we perceived that they consisted of an officer in the uniform of one of the French regiments of foot, a couple of files of men, and a bugler.“Come,” said the count to me, as soon as we had clearly made out the character of our visitors, “let us go down and see what this gentleman has to say.”We made our way down the staircase—passing through openings which had been purposely left in the barricades, but which could be effectually closed in less than a minute—and accompanied by half-a-dozen of the most resolute and trusty of the count’s people, armed with musket and dagger, emerged through the great door upon the terrace, the steps leading to which the Frenchmen were just ascending. They were allowed to fairly reach the terrace, a distance of some thirty yards or so then intervening between us and them, when the count stepped forward, and, raising his hand, cried in French, in an authoritative voice,—“Halt! I allow no body of armed men to approach my chateau any nearer than the spot where you now stand, without my first receiving an explanation of the reason for their presence. The officer in command may, however, come forward and state his business; but I warn you that, if the rest attempt to approach, my men will at once fire upon you.”The Frenchmen halted, and the officer, after apparently giving his men some brief instructions in a low tone of voice, advanced towards us, raising his shako as he joined us, and saying,—“Have I the honour to address Count Lorenzo di Paoli?”“I am the individual whom you name,” replied the count. “To what circumstance am I indebted for the honour of this somewhat extraordinary visit?”“I am instructed by General Lefevre, the officer in command of the forces now stationed at Ajaccio, to request your immediate attendance before him in reference to a matter closely affecting your own honour,” replied the Frenchman.“As I have not the advantage of General Lefevre’s acquaintance, and cannot conceive what interest he can possibly have in any matter relating to my honour, you may go back to him, sir, and tell him I positively decline to accede to his request, which—to say the least of it—is a very singular one to make to a Corsican noble.”“I regret to say that the general, anticipating the possibility of your refusal, has ordered me, in such a case, to arrest you. It is a disagreeable necessity, which I would much rather have avoided; but you leave me no alternative. Count Lorenzo di Paoli, I arrest you in the name of the National Assembly, on a charge of conspiracy,” answered the Frenchman, stepping forward and attempting to lay his hand on the count’s shoulder.“Stand back, sir!” cried Count Lorenzo, stepping back a pace and levelling a pistol at the officer’s head. “I am fully acquainted with your general’s designs against me; and I decline to walk into the trap which he has set for me. I repudiate and defy his authority, which I will resist to the death; and you may go back and tell him so.”“Ha! say you so?” exclaimed the Frenchman. “Rash man, you will soon feel the power of the authority which you have so arrogantly defied, for I may inform you that I have at hand a party strong enough tocompelyour submission; and my orders are, not to return to Ajaccio without you.”“Then go, sir, and bring up your party,” retorted the count scornfully; “and we will endeavour to give you such a reception as shall teach your general to beware how he attempts to molest a Corsican noble for the future.”The French officer bowed, raised his shako, and somewhat hastily retired, withdrawing his men from the terrace directly he joined them; and we stood watching them down the drive, until, having reached a point about midway between the terrace and the avenue, and well out of musket-shot, the little party halted; a bugle-call was sounded; and we saw a large body of men deploy into line beneath the trees and advance along the drive at the double.We then retreated to the interior of the chateau, carefully locking and barring the great door behind us; and, closing the barriers on the grand staircase as we ascended, made the best of our way to the principal floor, from whence we had decided to conduct the defence in the first instance.Our dispositions for the defence of the chateau were simple in the extreme. We had only the front of the house to defend, the sides and rear being protected by the high wall before referred to; we therefore divided our little garrison into two parties, one to each wing of the building; the count heading one party, and confiding the direction of the other to me. As our plans were complete, the count and I separated on reaching the gallery at the head of the staircase, he going to that part of the building which he had undertaken to defend; and I making the best of my way to my own command.On entering the saloon where my party was stationed, I at once went to the nearest window to reconnoitre. The moon was by this time riding high in the unclouded ether, flooding the scene with the soft effulgence of her silvery beams, and rendering every object which was not obscured by the black shadows of the trees as distinct as though it had been daylight. Her brilliant disc was invisible from the front windows of the chateau, she having by this time passed somewhat to the rear of the building; and this of course gave us a very decided advantage, inasmuch as it rendered it difficult for the attacking party to distinguish us at the windows, while they were exposed in the full radiance of the brilliant moonlight.When I reached the window, the main body of the French had just joined the smaller party, and had been halted. They presented a formidable array, numbering, in my estimation, quite a hundred, all armed with musket and bayonet; and I thought I detected among them a small party of grenadiers. Three or four individuals, apparently officers, were standing a little distance apart from the rest, and appeared to be consulting together. They remained thus for about five minutes, when their bugler sounded a parley; and one of the officers, separating himself from the rest, advanced alone towards the chateau, displaying a white handkerchief attached to his sword-point. On seeing this, Count Lorenzo threw open the window immediately over the door, and stepped out upon the balcony, also exhibiting a white handkerchief. The officer continued to approach until he was within easy speaking distance, when he halted, and exclaimed,—“Once more, Count Lorenzo di Paoli, I call upon you to surrender yourself. Resistance, as you must see, from the force under my command, will be quite useless, and can only result in a needless effusion of blood, which I assure you will be visited with the severest retribution. Not on you alone, but also on all those who may be taken in arms with you, will this retribution descend; for your own sake, therefore, and for the sake of the misguided men who are being tempted by your rashness to theirowndestruction, I ask you again, and for the last time, to yield without further resistance.”“I have but one answer to make to your appeal, sir,” replied the count, “and it is this. I positively refuse to place myself in the power of those who have again and again proved themselves completely devoid of the principles of honour and justice. And I here and now throw off my allegiance to a country the government of which is in the hands of regicides and wholesale murderers, and declare myself to be in active sympathy with the Corsican patriots.”“Enough, sir, and more than enough,” haughtily returned the Frenchman. “On your head must rest the responsibility for whatever bloodshed may now ensue.”And turning on his heel, he disdainfully snatched the handkerchief from his sword-point and strode resentfully away. He had, during this brief colloquy, been covered by the muskets of the entire party under my command; and at its conclusion, though I promptly interfered, I was barely in time to prevent a volley being fired upon him. I learned afterwards that the count, knowing the temper and feeling of his people, had, before going out on the balcony, given the most positive orders to those under his command that, whatever the issue of the interview might be, the officer was to be allowed to retire unmolested.The attack commenced immediately upon the French officer rejoining his command, the entire force advancing at a rapid double, in order to place themselves as speedily as possible under the cover afforded by the steep slope which divided the flower-garden from the broad terrace in front of the chateau. The rush was made, and the cover gained in less than a couple of minutes; but our coolest and steadiest marksmen had already been stationed at the windows, with orders to select an individual mark and to make every shot tell; the result was that, almost immediately upon the troops getting in motion, an irregular fire broke out upon them from the chateau; and short as was the time occupied in making their rush, they left some ten or eleven of their number prostrate behind them.The Frenchmen by no means intended letting us have things all our own way, however, for directly they were safe under the shelter of the slope they crept up it, and, shielding themselves as well as they could behind the massive stone balustrades bounding the terrace, opened upon us a galling and continuous fire. This fire grew hotter and hotter, until the rattle of musketry all along the front of the terrace became continuous; the bullets pattering in showers through every window, and, in spite of our hastily arranged bulwarks, wounding more or less severely many of our people; while the terrace itself was obscured by a thick curtain of fleecy smoke.This had lasted for perhaps five minutes, when from my loophole of observation I descried dimly in the midst of the smoky canopy, some half-a-dozen indistinct forms hurriedly crossing the terrace toward the great entrance door of the chateau. I immediately directed the attention of my party to these men, ordering them to concentrate the whole of their fire upon them, and stop their advance, if possible, at all hazards. We were just in time. An almost simultaneous volley rang out, just as the men were getting so near the walls that they could not be aimed at without complete exposure on the part of the marksmen, and every one of them fell. A few seconds afterwards a series of sharp explosions took place, which told us that these men had been the bearers of grenades or petards with which to blow open the door. But our success had not been obtained without its price; for three of our men were shot dead, and one more so seriously wounded that he had to retire from the combat, in consequence of the way in which our men had been obliged to expose themselves, in order to cover the grenadiers with their muskets.Meanwhile, the curtain of smoke which veiled the terrace was every moment growing more dense, and in a few minutes from the fall of the grenadiers it had become so thick that it was quite impossible to see what was going on outside at a distance of more than twenty feet from the windows. The fire was maintained as furiously as ever, but the bullets no longer flew so thickly about our ears; a clear indication that our antagonists were as much blinded as we were, and were aiming pretty much at random; as it was of the utmost importance to economise our ammunition as much as possible, I therefore directed my party to cease firing for a time, until the smoke should have cleared away a little, or, at all events, only to fire when they could descry an object at which to aim. I then went across to the other wing, to suggest to the count the adoption of a similar plan, and had just reached his side when a violent explosion occurred below us, accompanied by a sound of splitting and rending of timber, and a heavy crash.“To the landing! to the landing, every man of you!” shouted the count. “They have blown down the door, and nothing can now prevent their entering the house. But keep cool and steady, my men, and we may yet successfully defend the staircase. Ah! I was just about to seek you!” he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon me. “You must fly at once; do not delay another instant, I beg of you. You will find Francesca in the music saloon, she will be your guide to the grotto; and as soon as you have reached it, mount and ride for your lives. Take care of her, Ralph, as you would that your own sister should be cared for; and may God be your shield and defence in every danger! Now go; there is no time for further parley; but you know all that I would have you do, and you know where to seek for the friends with whom I wish you to place Francesca. God bless you, my dear boy, and farewell until we meet again; I have already said farewell to my daughter.”He wrung my hand convulsively, and releasing it, fairly pushed me away from him along the corridor which led to the music saloon.As I hurried away a loud shout arose from the hall below, accompanied by a sound as of axes and bars crashing into the barricade at the foot of the staircase; then a rattling volley of musketry rang out from the gallery, followed by loud shrieks and agonised groans, fierce oaths, and yells of defiance; an answering volley from below, followed by more shrieks and one or two heavy falls; and as I rapidly increased my distance from the scene of action the varied sounds merged into a fierce and whirling din, such as might have arisen had Pandemonium opened its adamantine gates, and poured out upon the hapless chateau a legion of destroying fiends. On entering the saloon I found Francesca on her knees, ready equipped for a journey, and with a small gold crucifix in her hands, which she had removed from her neck. As I entered the apartment she rose to her feet, and, hastily replacing the jewel, came up to me, and, placing her hands in mine, exclaimed with quivering lips,—“Oh! Ralph dearest, what is the meaning of all this dreadful strife, and why have they attacked the chateau?”“I will tell you as soon as we are out of the reach of immediate danger,” I replied; “at present we have no time for anything but action, so, if you are ready, we will proceed at once.”“I am quite ready,” she answered; “but I feel very undecided what to do. My father told me to prepare for a journey, and to be ready to leave the chateau with you at any moment, but do you think I should be justified in doing so, now that he is in such dreadful peril?”“The peril is by no means as great as you appear to think,” said I, “and your compliance with your father’s instructions will relieve him of a very serious embarrassment; so let us not linger another moment, I entreat you.”The suggestion that her presence might possibly prove embarrassing to her father at once decided her, and, placing her hand in mine, she said simply, “I am ready; let us go,” and moved to the door of the apartment.We passed down the entire length of the corridor, and presently reached the head of a staircase leading to the rear portion of the house, and ordinarily used exclusively by the servants. Descending this, we traversed a short passage at its foot, and finally emerged through a door into the garden at the rear. A path closely bordered with mulberry-trees led down through the centre of this garden, passing down which we eventually reached a rustic building ordinarily used as a tool-house. Entering this, Francesca turned to me and said,—“Now, Ralph, there is a secret door in that back wall, but I have never been through it, so I do not know its exact position. But it is opened by pressing a spring, the head of which is formed like an ordinary nail-head, differing from the others only in that it projects a little more from the woodwork than the others. Do you think you can find it?”I ran my hand over the boarding, and soon encountered what would have seemed to any one unacquainted with the secret merely an ill-driven nail. Pressing firmly upon this, it yielded; a cleverly-concealed door opened and revealed a very narrow passage-like space between the wooden partition and the solid stone boundary-wall of the garden. Entering this and turning my back upon the open door, in accordance with Francesca’s directions, and feeling cautiously before me with my feet, I found myself standing at the head of a flight of stone steps. These I cautiously descended, Francesca following closely behind me after closing the secret door in her rear, and in afewseconds we found ourselves at the foot of the steps, and standing in an arched tunnel apparently about six feet high and as many feet wide. We then moved cautiously but rapidly forward, hand-in-hand, meeting with no difficulty or inconvenience during our passage, excepting such as arose from the mephitic atmosphere. This, however, was in itself sufficiently trying, and I was heartily glad when, after the lapse of nearly a quarter of an hour, we suddenly experienced a delicious whiff of cool pure night-air, and immediately afterwards emerged from the confined tunnel-like passage into a moderately spacious cavern, through the foliage at the mouth of which a broad patch of the luminous star-lighted sky was visible.“Who goes there?” ejaculated a voice from a mass of deep shadow on one side of the cave.I recognised Giaccomo’s voice, and at once replied, adding an inquiry as to whether he had detected any signs of the presence of the enemy in the neighbourhood of the cavern.“None whatever, signor,” he replied. “I have seen nothing all the time I have been here, and have heard nothing except the sound of distant firing in the direction of the chateau.”“Then let us be off at once,” said I. “The sooner we get into the main road the less likelihood will there be of our meeting with molestation.”Without more ado Francesca was accordingly assisted by Giaccomo to mount, my wounded arm precluding me from seizing that coveted privilege, after which the Corsican and I sprang into our saddles, and the cavalcade moved forth into the dazzling moonlight, taking our way over the short springy turf in a direction which enabled us to keep the chateau between us and the French, being cautious at the same time to keep as much as possible within the shadow of the trees. After travelling in this way for about a couple of miles, the chateau became entirely concealed from view by the intervening trees (though the sound of brisk firing could still be distinctly heard); I therefore sent Giaccomo to the front as guide, with instructions to shape such a course as would take us out upon the high road to Ajaccio, and ranged my own horse up alongside that of Francesca, who had behaved with admirable coolness and courage throughout the adventure, but seemed keenly distressed at the necessity which forced her from her father’s side at a time of such peculiar peril to him. This feeling I at once set myself to combat, making as light as possible of the peril, and stating that the attack upon the chateau was merely a wanton outrage on the part of the French, inflicted by way of retaliation in consequence of the count’s refusal to obey a discourteous summons from their general at Ajaccio. I was successful beyond my utmost hopes, my fair companion deriving from my representations a comfort and reassurance which I scarcely intended, but which I certainly had not the heart to take away again, so that by the time we reached Ajaccio—which we did without adventure of any kind—she had grown to regard the whole affair with a very tolerable amount of equanimity.After striking the high road we performed the remainder of the journey at a foot-pace, our object being to reach the town by about one o’clock in the morning, by which time Giaccomo assured me the entire inhabitants of the place would be in bed and fast asleep.On reaching that point in the road where I had taken leave of Rawlings, the “Juno’s” sailing-master, we dismounted, and turning the horses’ heads homeward, after adjusting their bridles so that they would not be likely to trail on the ground or entangle their feet, Giaccomo administered to each of the animals a smart stroke across the flank with his riding whip, which sent them off at a rattling gallop back along the road we had come, the man assuring me that they would be certain to keep on steadily until they again found themselves at their stable door at the chateau. We did this so as to avoid the necessity of attracting attention to ourselves by seeking stabling for them in the town at that late hour. When our steeds were fairly out of sight we resumed our way, and walked leisurely into Ajaccio, which we safely reached just about the time we had previously fixed upon as most desirable for our arrival.

For the next two days, matters went on at the chateau much as usual. Old Maria was as sedulously attentive as ever, her sole occupation being apparently the preparation of tempting and strengthening dishes for my consumption, and the concoction of tonic herbal medicines which she administered with relentless severity.

The weather continued gloriously fine, enabling me to be in the open air the greater portion of each day; and although the count was absent, his beautiful daughter more than supplied his place, as far at least as I was concerned; so that, what with judicious nursing and nourishment, plenty of easy exercise in the delicious bracing mountain air, and the delightful society of Francesca Paoli, I was rapidly gaining both in health and spirits.

On the second evening after my conversation with Count Lorenzo respecting the man whom he called Matteo Bartolozzi, Francesca and I were slowly returning to the house, after a somewhat longer walk than usual, when we were startled by the sound of a horse approaching at a rapid gallop behind us. Turning round, we saw that it was the count.

He reined up when alongside of us, and, gaily saluting us, dismounted, and walked the rest of the distance to the house with us. When we reached the broad terrace in front of the chateau, he handed over his still panting horse to one of the servants, and, placing an arm in mine, dismissed his daughter, saying he had an important communication to make to me.

The moment that Francesca was fairly out of ear-shot he turned to me and said,—

“I received about an hour ago an intimation that a party of French soldiers are on their way here, for the purpose of arresting me, on suspicion of conspiring with the insurgents against the French government, and I was also informed that authority had been given to the officer in command to take me by force, should I refuse to surrender myself and accompany them quietly. I at once set out to return here, galloping all the way, and on reaching the cross roads about six miles from here, I saw approaching along the Ajaccio road a detachment of infantry, which I have not the least doubt is the party referred to. I have quite made up my mind not to surrender; it would be simply throwing away my life to do so with the existing state of feeling of the French towards us Corsicans. I should doubtless be subjected to the ceremony of a trial, but it would be quite a mock affair; my doom is probably already fixed. I shall therefore defend the chateau as long as its walls will hold together, and I do not quite despair of doing so successfully, although my garrison will be but a weak one—I do not suppose I can muster more than twenty people all told, and they by no means reliable if it comes to a downright hand-to-hand tussle. The question is, what are we to do with you? Should we fail, and you again fall into the hands of the French, your fate is sealed, they will assuredly hang you as a spy on the nearest tree.”

“May I venture to ask, count, what are your intentions with regard to your daughter?” said I.

He turned deadly pale for an instant, then the blood rushed furiously to his head, his face crimsoned, his eyes sparkled vindictively, and the veins of his forehead stood out like knotted cords as he hoarsely ejaculated,—

“The man who lays a hand upon her must pass over my dead body; and let me tell you, Signor Inglese, I shall not die easily; much French blood will flow before I fall.”

“Unless an unlucky bullet happens to strike you fairly in the forehead, early in the fight,” I suggested.

“And do you imagine that I shall be imbecile enough to expose myself in so reckless a fashion as to render that probable?” he returned. “No! If I fight, it will be for life, not for glory, therefore I shall take every reasonable precaution to protect my life.”

“Still,” I persisted, “in the excitement of a fight prudence is sometimes forgotten for a brief space. Would it not be advisable to take any measures that may be possible to secure a retreat, should such unhappily become necessary?”

The count made no reply for a full minute, during which we continued to pace the terrace in the deepening twilight. Then he turned to me and said,—

“I wonder whether you will understand me if I say, that, as far asIam concerned, retreat is quite impossible. If I once come into collision with the French, I must either conquer or die; there is, for me, no middle course.”

“Then that settles the question, as far you are concerned,” I replied. “Is it imperative that your daughter should also die, in the event of our sustaining a defeat?”

“She must either die or fall into the hands of the French,” replied the count sternly; “and with the fate of poor Bell’ Demonio fresh in our memories, neither she nor I would for an instant hesitate as to which alternative to accept. I would send her away to seek shelter with some friend, but her presence, if discovered, would only compromise that friend irretrievably, as well as prove fatal to herself. Besides, to speak the truth, there is so much treachery existing among us that I dare not run the risk. If your ship were only within reach, I think I dare trust Francesca on board her; she would at least be safe from the French, and I have no doubt your captain would afford her temporary protection, until other arrangements could be made.”

“That he would, I am certain,” I replied eagerly, “I can certainly venture to promise so much in his behalf. Unfortunately, however, the ‘Juno’ is now at the north end of the island, and the only safe means—or rather theleast dangerousmeans of reaching her seems to me to be by water. I have come to the conclusion that that is the way by which I shall have to go, and if you felt you could confide Miss Francesca to my protection, I should be only too happy to have the opportunity to—to—”

“Make love to her on the way, eh?” interrupted the count, with a smile. “Nay, never blush and look confused, my boy. Do you think that, because I have not seen much of you for the last few days, I am altogether blind? I know, just as well as you do, that you two children fancy yourselves in love with each other; and were you a few years older I might have somewhat to say in the matter; as it is, you are both too young for me to take any serious notice of it. However, that is not now the question. Do you really think you could safely convey my daughter to the north end of the island, and place her, not on board your ship, but in the care of her aunt, my brother’s wife? You are a seaman, I know, and are doubtless skilled in your profession; but how would you proceed? It would be perfect madness to attempt engaging a vessel to convey you along the coast, the reward for delivering you both over to the French authorities would be an irresistible temptation to the fishermen or coasters.”

“I should not dream of running so serious a risk,” I replied. “My plan is very simple. I should make for Ajaccio, timing myself to reach the place about two or three o’clock in the morning, seize the most promising-looking boat I could find, and make sail in her. The only difficulty would be with my wounded arm, which is at present quite useless, but I dare say—”

“If that is your only difficulty,” again interrupted the count, “it may be easily overcome. I would send one of my people with you, a man whom I can implicitly trust, and who has moreover had some experience on board the small craft which trade along the coast.”

“Not Matteo, I hope?” said I.

“No, not Matteo,” replied the count. “You are prejudiced against him, and would probably refuse to take him. The man I am thinking of is called Giaccomo—he is one of the under-gardeners.”

“I should like to see the man,” said I; “but in the meantime had we not better make what preparations we can to defend the chateau, as well as to secure a retreat, should such be necessary?”

“By all means,” said the count. “Let us first go to the stables, and arrange the means for your escape, should it be necessary, and then we will go round the chateau together, and see what can be done in the matter of defending it.”

We turned away and walked round to the stables, in which stood ten fine horses. These, the count ordered to be removed at once to a place which he called the Elfin Grotto, giving instructions that the three which were considered to be the fleetest were to be saddled and bridled ready for instant use, Francesca’s saddle being required for one of them. He also hunted out Giaccomo—who looked a smart honest fellow enough—and ordered him to go with the horses to the grotto, holding himself in readiness for a lengthened journey at a moment’s notice, and that he was to understand he was under my immediate orders, to do whatever I might require of him.

We then retired to the interior of the chateau, to examine into its capabilities of defence, and, as much to get her out of the way as for any other reason, Francesca was directed to prepare a small package of clothing, such as would serve her for a week or so, her father informing her that it might be necessary for her to leave the chateau for a short time, and that in such an event I had undertaken to escort her to a place of safety.

This done, we made a careful examination of each floor of the building, beginning with the lowest or ground floor. The chateau was built in the Italian style of architecture, and consisted of two wings and a lofty central tower. The windows of the lower floor reached from near the ceiling right down to the ground, and gave access, by means of a row of three steps, directly to the rooms from the broad terrace along the front. These windows were protected by strong solid shutters of oak which were arranged to be fastened on the inside with three heavy iron bars, one at the top, one half-way down, and one at the bottom. The door was a very solid and substantial affair of oak thickly studded with nails, and was so well provided with massive bolts that I felt confident of its power to resist anything except artillery. This completed the defences of the lower floor, so far as the front was concerned. The back we had very little fear about; a high and solid stone wall surmounted by a formidablechevaux-de-friseextending for about thirty yards from each wing, and then stretching back far enough to enclose the stables and other offices, as well as a spacious kitchen-garden. The windows of the next two floors were quite unprotected; and the count therefore gave immediate orders to have all the available beds, mattresses, cushions, etcetera, piled up along the lower portion of each window, just high enough to protect a person when kneeling on the floor. The grand staircase, which was the only one accessible from the front entrance, was also strongly barricaded in three or four places, a sort of breastwork being constructed on the first landing, behind which the defenders might shelter themselves from the fire of an attacking party below. This done, nothing remained but to collect the arms and ammunition, muster the attendants, and await the development of events.

We had not very long to wait. Evening had closed down upon us and deepened into night during the progress of our preparations, and the count and I were watching from one of the windows the exquisitely beautiful spectacle afforded by a clear moonrise, when we observed some moving objects among the deep shadows cast by the trees of the distant avenue, and, once or twice, the cold gleam of steel where the mellow rays of the moon penetrated through the overarching branches. Presently a small group of figures emerged from the shadows of the trees and approached along the central drive which led up to the broad expanse of flower-beds beyond the terrace. As they came nearer, we perceived that they consisted of an officer in the uniform of one of the French regiments of foot, a couple of files of men, and a bugler.

“Come,” said the count to me, as soon as we had clearly made out the character of our visitors, “let us go down and see what this gentleman has to say.”

We made our way down the staircase—passing through openings which had been purposely left in the barricades, but which could be effectually closed in less than a minute—and accompanied by half-a-dozen of the most resolute and trusty of the count’s people, armed with musket and dagger, emerged through the great door upon the terrace, the steps leading to which the Frenchmen were just ascending. They were allowed to fairly reach the terrace, a distance of some thirty yards or so then intervening between us and them, when the count stepped forward, and, raising his hand, cried in French, in an authoritative voice,—

“Halt! I allow no body of armed men to approach my chateau any nearer than the spot where you now stand, without my first receiving an explanation of the reason for their presence. The officer in command may, however, come forward and state his business; but I warn you that, if the rest attempt to approach, my men will at once fire upon you.”

The Frenchmen halted, and the officer, after apparently giving his men some brief instructions in a low tone of voice, advanced towards us, raising his shako as he joined us, and saying,—

“Have I the honour to address Count Lorenzo di Paoli?”

“I am the individual whom you name,” replied the count. “To what circumstance am I indebted for the honour of this somewhat extraordinary visit?”

“I am instructed by General Lefevre, the officer in command of the forces now stationed at Ajaccio, to request your immediate attendance before him in reference to a matter closely affecting your own honour,” replied the Frenchman.

“As I have not the advantage of General Lefevre’s acquaintance, and cannot conceive what interest he can possibly have in any matter relating to my honour, you may go back to him, sir, and tell him I positively decline to accede to his request, which—to say the least of it—is a very singular one to make to a Corsican noble.”

“I regret to say that the general, anticipating the possibility of your refusal, has ordered me, in such a case, to arrest you. It is a disagreeable necessity, which I would much rather have avoided; but you leave me no alternative. Count Lorenzo di Paoli, I arrest you in the name of the National Assembly, on a charge of conspiracy,” answered the Frenchman, stepping forward and attempting to lay his hand on the count’s shoulder.

“Stand back, sir!” cried Count Lorenzo, stepping back a pace and levelling a pistol at the officer’s head. “I am fully acquainted with your general’s designs against me; and I decline to walk into the trap which he has set for me. I repudiate and defy his authority, which I will resist to the death; and you may go back and tell him so.”

“Ha! say you so?” exclaimed the Frenchman. “Rash man, you will soon feel the power of the authority which you have so arrogantly defied, for I may inform you that I have at hand a party strong enough tocompelyour submission; and my orders are, not to return to Ajaccio without you.”

“Then go, sir, and bring up your party,” retorted the count scornfully; “and we will endeavour to give you such a reception as shall teach your general to beware how he attempts to molest a Corsican noble for the future.”

The French officer bowed, raised his shako, and somewhat hastily retired, withdrawing his men from the terrace directly he joined them; and we stood watching them down the drive, until, having reached a point about midway between the terrace and the avenue, and well out of musket-shot, the little party halted; a bugle-call was sounded; and we saw a large body of men deploy into line beneath the trees and advance along the drive at the double.

We then retreated to the interior of the chateau, carefully locking and barring the great door behind us; and, closing the barriers on the grand staircase as we ascended, made the best of our way to the principal floor, from whence we had decided to conduct the defence in the first instance.

Our dispositions for the defence of the chateau were simple in the extreme. We had only the front of the house to defend, the sides and rear being protected by the high wall before referred to; we therefore divided our little garrison into two parties, one to each wing of the building; the count heading one party, and confiding the direction of the other to me. As our plans were complete, the count and I separated on reaching the gallery at the head of the staircase, he going to that part of the building which he had undertaken to defend; and I making the best of my way to my own command.

On entering the saloon where my party was stationed, I at once went to the nearest window to reconnoitre. The moon was by this time riding high in the unclouded ether, flooding the scene with the soft effulgence of her silvery beams, and rendering every object which was not obscured by the black shadows of the trees as distinct as though it had been daylight. Her brilliant disc was invisible from the front windows of the chateau, she having by this time passed somewhat to the rear of the building; and this of course gave us a very decided advantage, inasmuch as it rendered it difficult for the attacking party to distinguish us at the windows, while they were exposed in the full radiance of the brilliant moonlight.

When I reached the window, the main body of the French had just joined the smaller party, and had been halted. They presented a formidable array, numbering, in my estimation, quite a hundred, all armed with musket and bayonet; and I thought I detected among them a small party of grenadiers. Three or four individuals, apparently officers, were standing a little distance apart from the rest, and appeared to be consulting together. They remained thus for about five minutes, when their bugler sounded a parley; and one of the officers, separating himself from the rest, advanced alone towards the chateau, displaying a white handkerchief attached to his sword-point. On seeing this, Count Lorenzo threw open the window immediately over the door, and stepped out upon the balcony, also exhibiting a white handkerchief. The officer continued to approach until he was within easy speaking distance, when he halted, and exclaimed,—

“Once more, Count Lorenzo di Paoli, I call upon you to surrender yourself. Resistance, as you must see, from the force under my command, will be quite useless, and can only result in a needless effusion of blood, which I assure you will be visited with the severest retribution. Not on you alone, but also on all those who may be taken in arms with you, will this retribution descend; for your own sake, therefore, and for the sake of the misguided men who are being tempted by your rashness to theirowndestruction, I ask you again, and for the last time, to yield without further resistance.”

“I have but one answer to make to your appeal, sir,” replied the count, “and it is this. I positively refuse to place myself in the power of those who have again and again proved themselves completely devoid of the principles of honour and justice. And I here and now throw off my allegiance to a country the government of which is in the hands of regicides and wholesale murderers, and declare myself to be in active sympathy with the Corsican patriots.”

“Enough, sir, and more than enough,” haughtily returned the Frenchman. “On your head must rest the responsibility for whatever bloodshed may now ensue.”

And turning on his heel, he disdainfully snatched the handkerchief from his sword-point and strode resentfully away. He had, during this brief colloquy, been covered by the muskets of the entire party under my command; and at its conclusion, though I promptly interfered, I was barely in time to prevent a volley being fired upon him. I learned afterwards that the count, knowing the temper and feeling of his people, had, before going out on the balcony, given the most positive orders to those under his command that, whatever the issue of the interview might be, the officer was to be allowed to retire unmolested.

The attack commenced immediately upon the French officer rejoining his command, the entire force advancing at a rapid double, in order to place themselves as speedily as possible under the cover afforded by the steep slope which divided the flower-garden from the broad terrace in front of the chateau. The rush was made, and the cover gained in less than a couple of minutes; but our coolest and steadiest marksmen had already been stationed at the windows, with orders to select an individual mark and to make every shot tell; the result was that, almost immediately upon the troops getting in motion, an irregular fire broke out upon them from the chateau; and short as was the time occupied in making their rush, they left some ten or eleven of their number prostrate behind them.

The Frenchmen by no means intended letting us have things all our own way, however, for directly they were safe under the shelter of the slope they crept up it, and, shielding themselves as well as they could behind the massive stone balustrades bounding the terrace, opened upon us a galling and continuous fire. This fire grew hotter and hotter, until the rattle of musketry all along the front of the terrace became continuous; the bullets pattering in showers through every window, and, in spite of our hastily arranged bulwarks, wounding more or less severely many of our people; while the terrace itself was obscured by a thick curtain of fleecy smoke.

This had lasted for perhaps five minutes, when from my loophole of observation I descried dimly in the midst of the smoky canopy, some half-a-dozen indistinct forms hurriedly crossing the terrace toward the great entrance door of the chateau. I immediately directed the attention of my party to these men, ordering them to concentrate the whole of their fire upon them, and stop their advance, if possible, at all hazards. We were just in time. An almost simultaneous volley rang out, just as the men were getting so near the walls that they could not be aimed at without complete exposure on the part of the marksmen, and every one of them fell. A few seconds afterwards a series of sharp explosions took place, which told us that these men had been the bearers of grenades or petards with which to blow open the door. But our success had not been obtained without its price; for three of our men were shot dead, and one more so seriously wounded that he had to retire from the combat, in consequence of the way in which our men had been obliged to expose themselves, in order to cover the grenadiers with their muskets.

Meanwhile, the curtain of smoke which veiled the terrace was every moment growing more dense, and in a few minutes from the fall of the grenadiers it had become so thick that it was quite impossible to see what was going on outside at a distance of more than twenty feet from the windows. The fire was maintained as furiously as ever, but the bullets no longer flew so thickly about our ears; a clear indication that our antagonists were as much blinded as we were, and were aiming pretty much at random; as it was of the utmost importance to economise our ammunition as much as possible, I therefore directed my party to cease firing for a time, until the smoke should have cleared away a little, or, at all events, only to fire when they could descry an object at which to aim. I then went across to the other wing, to suggest to the count the adoption of a similar plan, and had just reached his side when a violent explosion occurred below us, accompanied by a sound of splitting and rending of timber, and a heavy crash.

“To the landing! to the landing, every man of you!” shouted the count. “They have blown down the door, and nothing can now prevent their entering the house. But keep cool and steady, my men, and we may yet successfully defend the staircase. Ah! I was just about to seek you!” he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon me. “You must fly at once; do not delay another instant, I beg of you. You will find Francesca in the music saloon, she will be your guide to the grotto; and as soon as you have reached it, mount and ride for your lives. Take care of her, Ralph, as you would that your own sister should be cared for; and may God be your shield and defence in every danger! Now go; there is no time for further parley; but you know all that I would have you do, and you know where to seek for the friends with whom I wish you to place Francesca. God bless you, my dear boy, and farewell until we meet again; I have already said farewell to my daughter.”

He wrung my hand convulsively, and releasing it, fairly pushed me away from him along the corridor which led to the music saloon.

As I hurried away a loud shout arose from the hall below, accompanied by a sound as of axes and bars crashing into the barricade at the foot of the staircase; then a rattling volley of musketry rang out from the gallery, followed by loud shrieks and agonised groans, fierce oaths, and yells of defiance; an answering volley from below, followed by more shrieks and one or two heavy falls; and as I rapidly increased my distance from the scene of action the varied sounds merged into a fierce and whirling din, such as might have arisen had Pandemonium opened its adamantine gates, and poured out upon the hapless chateau a legion of destroying fiends. On entering the saloon I found Francesca on her knees, ready equipped for a journey, and with a small gold crucifix in her hands, which she had removed from her neck. As I entered the apartment she rose to her feet, and, hastily replacing the jewel, came up to me, and, placing her hands in mine, exclaimed with quivering lips,—

“Oh! Ralph dearest, what is the meaning of all this dreadful strife, and why have they attacked the chateau?”

“I will tell you as soon as we are out of the reach of immediate danger,” I replied; “at present we have no time for anything but action, so, if you are ready, we will proceed at once.”

“I am quite ready,” she answered; “but I feel very undecided what to do. My father told me to prepare for a journey, and to be ready to leave the chateau with you at any moment, but do you think I should be justified in doing so, now that he is in such dreadful peril?”

“The peril is by no means as great as you appear to think,” said I, “and your compliance with your father’s instructions will relieve him of a very serious embarrassment; so let us not linger another moment, I entreat you.”

The suggestion that her presence might possibly prove embarrassing to her father at once decided her, and, placing her hand in mine, she said simply, “I am ready; let us go,” and moved to the door of the apartment.

We passed down the entire length of the corridor, and presently reached the head of a staircase leading to the rear portion of the house, and ordinarily used exclusively by the servants. Descending this, we traversed a short passage at its foot, and finally emerged through a door into the garden at the rear. A path closely bordered with mulberry-trees led down through the centre of this garden, passing down which we eventually reached a rustic building ordinarily used as a tool-house. Entering this, Francesca turned to me and said,—

“Now, Ralph, there is a secret door in that back wall, but I have never been through it, so I do not know its exact position. But it is opened by pressing a spring, the head of which is formed like an ordinary nail-head, differing from the others only in that it projects a little more from the woodwork than the others. Do you think you can find it?”

I ran my hand over the boarding, and soon encountered what would have seemed to any one unacquainted with the secret merely an ill-driven nail. Pressing firmly upon this, it yielded; a cleverly-concealed door opened and revealed a very narrow passage-like space between the wooden partition and the solid stone boundary-wall of the garden. Entering this and turning my back upon the open door, in accordance with Francesca’s directions, and feeling cautiously before me with my feet, I found myself standing at the head of a flight of stone steps. These I cautiously descended, Francesca following closely behind me after closing the secret door in her rear, and in afewseconds we found ourselves at the foot of the steps, and standing in an arched tunnel apparently about six feet high and as many feet wide. We then moved cautiously but rapidly forward, hand-in-hand, meeting with no difficulty or inconvenience during our passage, excepting such as arose from the mephitic atmosphere. This, however, was in itself sufficiently trying, and I was heartily glad when, after the lapse of nearly a quarter of an hour, we suddenly experienced a delicious whiff of cool pure night-air, and immediately afterwards emerged from the confined tunnel-like passage into a moderately spacious cavern, through the foliage at the mouth of which a broad patch of the luminous star-lighted sky was visible.

“Who goes there?” ejaculated a voice from a mass of deep shadow on one side of the cave.

I recognised Giaccomo’s voice, and at once replied, adding an inquiry as to whether he had detected any signs of the presence of the enemy in the neighbourhood of the cavern.

“None whatever, signor,” he replied. “I have seen nothing all the time I have been here, and have heard nothing except the sound of distant firing in the direction of the chateau.”

“Then let us be off at once,” said I. “The sooner we get into the main road the less likelihood will there be of our meeting with molestation.”

Without more ado Francesca was accordingly assisted by Giaccomo to mount, my wounded arm precluding me from seizing that coveted privilege, after which the Corsican and I sprang into our saddles, and the cavalcade moved forth into the dazzling moonlight, taking our way over the short springy turf in a direction which enabled us to keep the chateau between us and the French, being cautious at the same time to keep as much as possible within the shadow of the trees. After travelling in this way for about a couple of miles, the chateau became entirely concealed from view by the intervening trees (though the sound of brisk firing could still be distinctly heard); I therefore sent Giaccomo to the front as guide, with instructions to shape such a course as would take us out upon the high road to Ajaccio, and ranged my own horse up alongside that of Francesca, who had behaved with admirable coolness and courage throughout the adventure, but seemed keenly distressed at the necessity which forced her from her father’s side at a time of such peculiar peril to him. This feeling I at once set myself to combat, making as light as possible of the peril, and stating that the attack upon the chateau was merely a wanton outrage on the part of the French, inflicted by way of retaliation in consequence of the count’s refusal to obey a discourteous summons from their general at Ajaccio. I was successful beyond my utmost hopes, my fair companion deriving from my representations a comfort and reassurance which I scarcely intended, but which I certainly had not the heart to take away again, so that by the time we reached Ajaccio—which we did without adventure of any kind—she had grown to regard the whole affair with a very tolerable amount of equanimity.

After striking the high road we performed the remainder of the journey at a foot-pace, our object being to reach the town by about one o’clock in the morning, by which time Giaccomo assured me the entire inhabitants of the place would be in bed and fast asleep.

On reaching that point in the road where I had taken leave of Rawlings, the “Juno’s” sailing-master, we dismounted, and turning the horses’ heads homeward, after adjusting their bridles so that they would not be likely to trail on the ground or entangle their feet, Giaccomo administered to each of the animals a smart stroke across the flank with his riding whip, which sent them off at a rattling gallop back along the road we had come, the man assuring me that they would be certain to keep on steadily until they again found themselves at their stable door at the chateau. We did this so as to avoid the necessity of attracting attention to ourselves by seeking stabling for them in the town at that late hour. When our steeds were fairly out of sight we resumed our way, and walked leisurely into Ajaccio, which we safely reached just about the time we had previously fixed upon as most desirable for our arrival.

Chapter Sixteen.The “Mouette”, the “Vigilant”, and the “Requin.”On reaching the port my first consideration was to discover a suitable craft in which to make the trip along the coast to the north end of the island. When it actually came to the point I must confess that the idea of seizing and carrying off the property of somebody else was extremely repugnant to me. Still, I could see no other course open without exposing the party to imminent danger of betrayal, and I had resolved in my own mind that, since necessity seemed to point to the deprivation of some unfortunate individual of his property, the deprivation should be only temporary; I would take the most suitable boat I could find, and when done with seek some means of returning her to her owner with a handsome sum of money as hire.Having made up my mind so far, I took counsel with Giaccomo, who knew the place well, and he immediately ran over a list of craft belonging to the port, any one of which he thought would serve our purpose passably well. In the midst of his statement, however, he suddenly interrupted himself with many objurgations upon his own stupidity, to which he added a statement that he had just that instant thought of a craft which would suit us admirably, one, moreover, which we need not distress ourselves about returning.“That sounds rather promising,” said I. “What is she, Giaccomo?”“She is a pleasure-boat measuring about fifteen tons,” replied the man; “she is a very strange-looking craft, but she sails like the wind. She is the property of one of the French officers, who built her for his own amusement.”“Then,” said I, “if she is likely to suit us, we will certainly make a prize of her without compunction. Lead on, my man, and let us see if we can find her.”We went on some distance further until we came to the waterside, not meeting with a single soul on the way, and there we helped ourselves to a rowing-boat and pulled out into the bay, where, according to Giaccomo’s account, we should find her if she then happened to be in port.We pulled through a large fleet of fishing-boats, coasting feluccas, and other craft, mostly of a size ranging from two to fifty tons, and at length, just as I was beginning to think our search would be in vain, Giaccomo exclaimed,—“There she is!”I looked in the direction indicated, and saw a long low-hulled craft, cutter-rigged, with what struck me as a set of spars altogether disproportionate to her size.“Oh!” I exclaimed in a tone of disappointment, “shewill never do. Why, she would capsize with half a capful of wind.”“By no means, signor,” replied the Corsican. “Though yew would never believe it, to look at her, she carries her canvas better and longer than any boat belonging to Ajaccio, and as for working to windward—she is simply astounding.”“If that be so,” said I, “let us paddle up alongside and take a look at her.”We did so, and on a nearer inspection found her to be, according to the then prevalent ideas concerning naval architecture, quite as extraordinary as Giaccomo had described her to be. She was about five times as long as she was wide, with a bow like a fine wedge, a good clean run, and very little freeboard; she was in fact a singular foreshadowing of the modern type of racing cutter, and consequently, at that date, absolutely unique.I was rather taken with her appearance, and my curiosity, moreover, being strongly excited by the marvellous stories told by Giaccomo respecting her sailing powers,—which, he asserted, he had had frequent opportunities of observing, from having been occasionally engaged to accompany her owner on his cruises,—I decided forthwith to take possession of her as a lawful prize. Mooring the boat alongside we accordingly crept softly on board, and Giaccomo immediately descended into the little forecastle to ascertain whether any one happened to be on board. The forecastle proved to be empty, but on going down into the cabin we saw by the feeble glimmer of the cabin lamp a lad of about eighteen comfortably stretched out on the cushions laid along upon the top of the lockers.Drawing his long knife from its sheath, Giaccomo unceremoniously broke in upon the slumbers of this youth, and brandishing the gleaming blade before his astonished eyes, while admonishing him in a fierce whisper not to utter a sound above his breath if he placed the slightest value upon his life, he ordered him to enumerate what stores there were on board, and to indicate their locality. This the lad did, leading us first to a small but well-arranged pantry, and then opening the lockers and exhibiting their contents. A brief survey was sufficient to satisfy me that the craft was amply provisioned for our cruise, and this matter being thus satisfactorily settled, we repaired to the deck and proceeded to loose the sails and get the cutter under way; the lad whom we had so roughly aroused being persuaded by occasional suggestive exhibitions of Giaccomo’s knife to render his best assistance in the task.While the two were thus engaged, I conducted Francesca below, and having indicated to her the small but luxuriously-furnished sleeping cabin of the owner, proposed that she should take possession thereof, and endeavour to recruit her somewhat exhausted energies by procuring, if possible, a few hours’ sleep. I then returned to the deck, and found my “crew” in the act of getting up the anchor. This was soon done, the head-sails were trimmed, and under a gentle westerly breeze we proceeded to work out of the bay.As the cutter had a boat of her own towing astern, I cast adrift the one we had “borrowed,” and left her to take her chance of drifting ashore and finding her way once more into her proper owner’s hands.Shortly after leaving our anchorage we passed close to leeward of a long rakish-looking lateener, on board which, as ill-luck would have it, an anchor-watch was being kept. I suppose the circumstance of our getting under way at so unusual an hour must have attracted attention on board this craft, at all events the casting adrift of the shore-boat had been observed; and as we approached we were hailed from her deck with an inquiry as to whether we were aware that one of our boats had gone adrift.“Ay, ay,” replied Giaccomo, “we know it; it is all right: we shall pick her up presently, but we do not care to tack just now in this light wind for fear of— Diavolo! hold your tongue, you son of a boiled monkey, or I will let daylight into you on one side and out on the other.”The latter part of this speech had been addressed to our prisoner, who, encouraged by the close proximity of the two vessels, had without a sign of warning lifted up his voice and shouted with all the power of his lungs,—“Perfidie! nous som—” The remainder of the sentence had been choked back by the iron grasp of Giaccomo’s hand upon the lad’s throat, the dagger being flashed before his eyes and the threat hissed into his ears at the same moment.But it was enough, the mischief had been done. As we glided past the craft’s stern we saw the man on watch dart to the companion and disappear, returning to the deck in less than a minute, accompanied by another individual, whose fluttering white garment sufficiently indicated that he had come direct from his berth without waiting to observe the decencies of ordinary life. He, too, hailed us, but we wasted no breath in attempting to reply, fully aware that nothing we could say would allay the suspicion which had been aroused. Instead therefore of shouting back, and possibly attracting the attention of other craft, we devoted all our energies to trimming our canvas to the best advantage, and packing upon the cutter every rag we could set.“Per Baccho!” ejaculated Giaccomo between his set teeth, addressing the author of the mischief, and emphasising his remarks with a smart prod of the knife in the most fleshy part of that misguided individual’s person, “I have a great mind to slash your throat open, and then launch you overboard as a breakfast to the sharks. You have drawn upon us the attention of that rascally guarda-costa, the captain of which will not be satisfied until he has received a full explanation of your remark. But, maledetto! remember this, the moment our capture seems certain I will slit you up as I would a sardine,”—appropriate gesture with the knife,—“so if you object to being slit open like a sardine you will give me all the help you can. You comprehend?”The lad comprehended so well that he was frightened half out of his wits, and went round the deck, taking an extra pull here, easing off half an inch of sheet there, shifting the water-casks, and, in short, doing all he knew to increase the speed of the cutter, glancing anxiously astern at the guarda-costa in the intervals, and from her to his dreaded shipmate.Of course I am aware that I ought to have interfered and put a stop to this terrorism on the part of the hot-blooded Corsican, and Ishouldhave done so, had there appeared any probability of his executing his sanguinary threats; but I had already seen enough of him to believe that his bark was a great deal worse than his bite, and so, as the prisoner had evidently got us into what might prove a very awkward scrape, I was willing that he should not be allowed to go altogether unpunished.It was even as Giaccomo had foreseen. We were scarcely a mile from the guarda-costa when we saw her canvas drooping in heavy festoons from her long tapering yards, and by the time that we had increased our distance to a couple of miles her anchor was a-trip, and she was sweeping round on her way out after us.I called my aide aft and asked him whether he knew the craft.“Too well, signor,” he replied. “It has been my lot to be chased by her often, and many an anxious moment has she caused me. She has the name of being the fastest sailer inside the Gut, and she is the terror of every honest smuggler round the coast here.”“Ho, ho!” said I. “So that is how the land lies, is it, master Giaccomo? You have been a bit of a smuggler in your time, eh?”“Yes,” he frankly returned, “and not so very long ago either. And I should have been taken to a certainty, had not a shot from one of your cruisers turned yonder inquisitive gentleman back.”“Let us hope we may meet with a similar slice of luck this time,” said I. “Do you think we stand any chance of getting away from her?”“Everything depends on the weather,” was the reply. “In light winds, such as this, I have never seen anything to approach this cutter for speed; but should it come on to blow, the ‘Vigilant’ will run us under water.”This was a singularly agreeable piece of information to receive just at that moment, for the sky had gradually become flecked with fast-flying patches of scud, and a dark threatening bank of cloud was working up to windward. So far, however, the breeze remained light, and while we were gliding through the water at the rate of something like five knots, with scarcely a ripple under our bows to indicate the fact, the guarda-costa appeared to have little beyond bare steerage-way.At first I was sanguine enough to hope that, seeing how we slipped away from her, the lateener would ’bout ship, and return to her moorings; but nothing of the kind: she held on like grim death, her skipper, no doubt, being seaman enough to read in the increasingly-threatening aspect of the heavens a promise that his turn should come by-and-by.In the meantime the wind grew rapidly lighter until it became “breathless” calm; and there we both lay, heaving sluggishly on the long swell, our sails flapping idly from side to side, and our bows boxing the compass.The cloud-bank meanwhile had been steadily rising, and at length it completely veiled the sky, obscuring first the stars, and finally the moon, and enveloping the whole face of nature in a mantle of inky blackness. So intense was this darkness that we lost sight of the guarda-costa, the land, and in fact everything save the two or three riding-lights which the more prudent of the skippers had chosen to display on board their craft in the roadstead.A breathless hush prevailed, broken only by the loud creak of our boom and the flap of the sails. Giaccomo and his shipmate, or prisoner—whichever the reader likes—were somewhere forward, probably sitting down; but it was impossible to see them in the impenetrable darkness.I called Giaccomo aft, and his voice, when he spoke in reply, sounded strange, weird, and unnatural. I considered the aspect of the sky portentous in the extreme, but I wished to have his opinion, as that of a man accustomed to the weather of that region, and I asked him what he thought of it.“We shall have it down upon us very heavily before long,” he replied; “but I do not think it will last above three or four hours.”“Then we had better bear a hand and shorten sail,” said I. “You take in the gaff-topsail, and bowse down a double reef in the mainsail, and I will in foresail and shift the jib. I suppose there is a storm-jib somewhere on board?”“Down in the locker, forward,” said he. “Be careful to close the hatch securely when you come up, signor, or we shall be swamped in less than ten minutes; she will bury herself in the breeze that we are going to have.”We all three worked like Trojans, and in a remarkably short space of time had the “Mouette”—as I found the cutter was named—under double-reefed mainsail and storm-jib, the latter well in along the bowsprit, with topmast lowered as far as it would come, the fore-hatch and cabin skylight battened down, and everything made snug and ready for a regular stand-up fight with the elements.While we were busy with these preparations, I admonished Giaccomo to keep a smart lookout, and I was careful also to do the same myself, in case the guarda-costa should endeavour to cut matters short by sending away a boat after us; but the man assured me that the skipper of the craft knew too well what he was about to risk the loss of a boat’s crew by sending them away under such threatening conditions of weather.Smart as we had been in making our preparations, we were only barely in time. We had just comfortably completed our work, and I had established myself at the tiller, with Giaccomo at the mainsheet, and François—as the French lad called himself—at the jib-sheet, when there came a terrific flash of lightning, green and baleful, illumining for a single instant the entire scene, and revealing our pertinacious friend, the “Vigilant,” in her old berth astern, with her long tapering yards lowered to the deck, and two stumpy lugs and a pocket-handkerchief of a jib hoisted in their place. Then, as the opaque darkness closed down upon us again, there followed the long deep reverberating roll of the thunder. Another vivid flash quickly succeeded, the thunder this time being much louder and nearer; and then, after a pause of about a minute, there came a perfectblastof lightning, so intensely bright that the whole atmosphere appeared for one brief moment to be literally on fire. Simultaneously with the flash came the awful deafening crackling crash of the thunder, the terrific detonations of which completely stunned and unnerved me while they lasted, so overpowering were they in comparison with anything of the kind which I had before heard. We had scarcely time to recover our hearing before we became conscious of a hissing roaring sound in the atmosphere, momentarily increasing in intensity, and, looking to windward, there appeared in startling relief against the sable background a long line of luminous milky foam rushing down toward us from the horizon. In an incredibly short time the squall was upon us. On it came, like a howling fiend, over the tortured surface of the ocean, causing it to hiss and seethe like the contents of a boiling cauldron, and striking the cutter with such resistless fury that she went over helplessly before it, burying her lee-rail so deeply in the brine that her sails lay prostrate upon the surface of the water.Each of us instinctively shouted to the others to “hold on,” grasping at the same moment whatever came nearest. I managed somehow to clamber up the deck, as the cutter went over, and, passing out over the low bulwarks, established myself on the upturned side of the little craft. Giaccomo had done the same, while François was standing on the side of the cabin-companion, and clinging convulsively with both hands to the weather-rail.Crawling up to the side of the Corsican, I placed my mouth to his ear and shouted,—“Do you think you can cut away the mast?”“No! no! no!” he earnestly returned. “See, signor, her head is paying-off, and she will come up again in a minute or two; shecannotturn over altogether, her ballast is too well secured for that, and she will not fill even if she remains thus for half an hour yet; no water can get below except through the companion, and the doors fit so well that very little will get down even through them. See there, she is coming up again already.”It was even so. While the man was speaking, the cutter’s bows had been rapidly paying-off, until we headed, as nearly as we could guess, straight for the shore; when, the pressure of the wind being no longer upon her broadside, the heavy ballast had gradually dragged the yacht into an upright position, and we had, somewhat precipitately, to scramble inboard again.The moment that the yacht recovered herself, the wind of course caught her sails, and away we at once started to leeward with the speed of a hunted stag. This, however, would never do; the shore was straight ahead, and, at the rate at which we were travelling, twenty minutes would have seen us dashed into matchwood upon the rocks.Very cautiously, therefore, we brought her upon a wind, and though, when we again got broadside-to, she threatened to go over once more with us, we managed by careful manipulation of the sheets to avoid such a catastrophe; and when we had got her once fairly jammed close upon a wind, some former experience of mine in cutter sailing enabled me to keep her right side uppermost. But it was perilous work for a good hour after the squall struck us. I have occasionally seen in my later days some bold and even reckless match-sailing, but I have never yet seen a craft so desperately overdriven as was, perforce, the little “Mouette” on that memorable night. While the first strength of the gale lasted we were literally under water the whole time, the sea boiling and foaming in over our bows, and sweeping away aft and out over the taffrail in a continuous flood.I believe we should have sailed faster, and we should assuredly have made much better weather of it, had we been able to get a close reef down in the mainsail; but under the circumstances this was impossible, since, being so short-handed, it would have delayed us long enough to allow the “Vigilant” to get alongside us before we had got through with the work. There was, therefore, nothing for it, but to keep on as we were, the cutter heeling over to an angle of quite 50 deg., so that we were really standing upon the inside of the lee bulwark, with our backs resting against the steeply-inclined deck, up above our knees in the sea, beneath which the little craft’s lee-rail was deeply buried; while, owing to our great speed, we rushedthroughinstead of riding over the sea which was rapidly getting up, so that, when an unusually heavy “comber” met us, we were literallyburiedfor the moment, while it swept over us.Luckily the first mad fury of the blast lasted only for two or three minutes, or our mast could never have resisted the tremendous strain upon it; as it was, stout though the spar—absurdly disproportionate to the size of the craft, I then considered it—it swayed and bent like a fishing-rod, causing the lee-rigging to blow out quite in bights, while that to windward was strained as taut as harp-strings, the resemblance to which was increased by the weird sound of the wind as it shrieked through it.Scarcely had the tempest burst upon us before the veil of cloud which had obscured the heavens was rent to shreds by its fury, the sky was cleared as if by magic, the moon and stars reappeared—the former low down upon the horizon,—and we had an uninterrupted view of the wild scene around us.We were heading straight out from the land, and sailing so close to the wind that we were taking the seas nearly stem-on; and I frankly confess that my heart was, metaphorically speaking, in my mouth for the greatest part of that night, while watching the little craft rush bodily into the steep slope of wave after wave, and felt her quiver like a frightened thing as they swept hissing and seething over our heads. My admiration for the skill of her builder was boundless; for, had I not witnessed the cutter’s achievements, I could never have credited the power of wood and iron to successfully resist such a terrific strain and battering as she received.When the first wild struggle for existence was over, and we had fairly settled down to our work in that mad life-or-death race, we had time to look round and see how our opponent had come out of the struggle. We had not far to look. There she was, about three miles to leeward, and well on our quarter, dashing gallantly on; now rushing upward upon the crest of a wave, amid a deluge of spray, and lifting her fore-foot out of the water as though about to leave the element altogether and take flight into the air, like a startled sea-bird; and anon plunging down into the trough until only a small portion of the heads of her sails was visible. She was evidently making much better weather of it than we were; but on the other hand half-an-hour’s patient observation revealed to us the comforting fact that, notwithstanding her vaunted speed, we were both head-reaching and weathering upon her.Satisfied at length that this was actually the case, I asked Giaccomo what he now thought of our chances of escape.“We shall get away from her,” he replied exultingly. “I have no longer any fear ofher; what I now dread is the possibility of the cutter foundering from under us. There must be a considerable amount of water making its way into her interior, with the sea sweeping over us thus incessantly; indeed, I am convinced that we are sensibly deeper in the water than we were.”“Do you think you could manage to get the pump under way?” I asked.“I wouldtry,” he replied; “but the well is on the larboard side, close by my feet, and deep under water.”“Then,” said I, “we must endeavour to get her round upon the other tack. We will watch for a ‘smooth,’ and directly it comes, you and François must round-in upon the mainsheet. Are you both ready?”They replied in the affirmative, and after watching in vain for some five minutes, a terrific sea burst over us, burying the craft—as it seemed to me—nearly half-way up her mast, and beyond it the water was comparatively smooth.“In with it!” I gasped, as we came out on the other side of this liquid hill. They gathered in the sheet as though their lives depended on it, and at the same moment I eased off the weather tiller-rope, and gave the craft her head. She surged up into the wind, her canvas flapping so furiously that it threatened to shake the mast out of her; her lee-gunwale appeared above the surface, and placing my feet against the tiller I pressed it gradually over, helping her round while stopping her way as little as possible; a sea rushed up and struck her on the port-bow, sending her head well off on the other tack, the jib-sheet was promptly hauled over, the mainsail filled, and as we hurriedly scrambled over to the other side of the deck and secured ourselves anew with lashings round our waists, the “Mouette” plunged forward on the larboard tack, looking well up to windward and heading about due north.The fixing and rigging of the pump was a work of considerable difficulty and danger, but it was eventually done; and then Giaccomo and François, placing themselves one on each side, set resolutely to work, with the determination of not leaving off as long as a drop of water would flow from the spout.The clear stream which gushed out as soon as the brake was set going showed us unmistakably that we had not begun a moment too soon, and had we still entertained any doubt upon this point, it would have been dispelled by the length of time it took to clear the little craft of water. It was broad daylight when at length Giaccomo panted triumphantly,—“There she sucks!”Just before sun-rise we noticed the first indications of a break in the gale, and by eight o’clock it had so far moderated that our lee-rail was just awash, and instead of diving through the seas, as we had been ever since the gale struck us, the cutter managed to rise over everything but the heaviest. It was still too wet forward to permit of taking off the forecastle-hatch, but communication between cabin and forecastle could be effected by means of a sliding door in the bulkhead; so François was sent below with instructions to prepare a thorough good breakfast, with plenty of hot coffee—which, let me say, I have found infinitely more comforting and refreshing than spirits, after long exposure to wet or cold, or both combined.After the setting of the moon we had lost sight of the guarda-costa until dawn once more betrayed her whereabouts. When first seen she was hull-down and about three points on our lee quarter, still under her two lugs and jib. So far, this was satisfactory; we had walked fairly away from her in her own weather, and Giaccomo was in ecstasies.“Ah!” he chuckled, “Monsieur Leroux would have almost forgiven us for running away with his ‘Mouette,’ had he been here to see what a shameful beating she has given the ‘Vigilant.’ The story is sure to leak out through some of the lateener’s people, and poor old Lieutenant Durand, who commands her, will not dare to show himself ashore at Ajaccio, he will be so laughed at.”But the guarda-costa’s people had no idea of tamely accepting their defeat as final. No sooner was it light enough for them to fairly make us out, than they shifted their sails, substituting single-reefed lateens for the lugs, and taking in their storm-jib out of the way. Their increased spread of canvas soon told a tale, for before half an hour had passed it became evident that they were gaining upon us, going faster through the water, that is; but she did not appear to weather on us much, if at all. The fact that the “Vigilant” was overhauling us, however, gave me very little uneasiness, for I calculated that, as we were both then sailing, it would take her quite three hours to get within gunshot of us, and probably another half-hour before there would be much probability of her hitting us, and by that time I expected we should be within four hours’ sail of San Fiorenzo, where I fully expected to find the old “Juno,” and probably a few more of our own ships; and I thought it very doubtful whether the Frenchmen would keep up the chase so far as that, for fear of running into a trap and being themselves caught.We therefore went to breakfast with tolerably easy minds, to say nothing of good appetites, and thoroughly enjoyed the meal,—a most sumptuous one, considering the place and the circumstances of its preparation,—Giaccomo condescending so far to relax the sternness of his demeanour to François as to pat that individual approvingly on the shoulder, and to assure him that such cookery went far to atone for his extraordinary indiscretion of the night before.Francesca sat down to breakfast with us, having quite unexpectedly made her appearance on deck, fresh, blooming, and cheerful, about half an hour before. To my unbounded surprise, she assured me that she had passed a very tolerable night, having indeed been sound asleep for the greater portion of the time. She had been somewhat alarmed when the cutter was thrown upon her beam-ends, but had not been in the least incommoded by the accident, nor indeed aware of its full extent, the cot upon which she was lying being a very ingenious affair, so contrived that it always maintained a perfectly horizontal position, no matter how much the cutter rolled and pitched, nor how greatly she heeled over. This was very gratifying news to me, for I fully expected to see her appear in the morning excessively frightened, and possibly very seriously bruised by the violent motion of the little craft in which she had passed so adventurous a night.By the time that we had all breakfasted the wind had so far moderated that it became necessary to make sail upon the cutter; the “Vigilant” having crept up well abeam of us, though still hull-down and apparently close in with the land. We accordingly shook both reefs out of the mainsail, and got the foresail and working-jib set, with which canvas we rushed along in true racing style, our lee-rail well buried, and the craft taking just enough weather-helm to allow of her being steered to a hair’s-breadth. Her performance perfectly enchanted me; I had never seen anything like it before, and to my unaccustomed eyes she seemed fairly to fly. Even Giaccomo and François, both of whom had repeatedly sailed in her, asserted that they had never seen her do so well before.When we again had time to take a glance to leeward at the “Vigilant,” we discovered that well-named craft bowling along under whole canvas, and evidently trying her hardest to head-reach upon us. For the first half-hour we endeavoured to flatter ourselves that we were still holding our own, but at the end of that time such self-deception was no longer possible; the breeze suited us admirably, but there was still too much sea for the little “Mouette,” and the “Vigilant’s” superior power at length began to tell. Had they carried sail as recklessly through the night as we had, there can be no doubt they would have been alongside of us by daylight. By this time, too, we were abreast of Calvi, and were able to bear away with a beam wind for Acciajola Point, round which, and at the bottom of the bay, lay San Fiorenzo, our destination. Our altered course gave our opponent a further advantage by bringing her a couple of points before our beam, and we had the mortification of seeing that the craft was edging out to intercept us, and would, to a moral certainty, cut us off before we could reach the headland.Still, I resolved to stand on, and trust to the chapter of accidents for our ultimate escape. If the change in our course had given the “Vigilant” one important advantage, it had given us another, to which I attached quite as much weight; it had brought the wind and sea abeam, and permitted us to ease up our sheets, while the sea no longer retarded us: it also permitted us to set a little extra canvas, and we accordingly lost no time in getting our topmast on end and setting the gaff-topsail, after which we could do nothing but sit still and anxiously watch the result.Meanwhile the two vessels were rapidly converging upon a point distant about a mile from Cape Acciajola. The wind continued to drop, the sea going down at the same time; and as the morning advanced and the weather became lighter, we appeared to be once more getting rather the advantage of our pertinacious antagonist. So completely was our attention engaged by the “Vigilant,” that it was not until that craft had hoisted her colours that we became aware of the fact that a new actor had appeared upon the scene, and was within seven miles of us. This was a brig, which when we first caught sight of her was running in for the land from the W.S.W., with every stitch of canvas set that would draw, including lower, topmast, and topgallant studding-sails on her port side. She lay about three points on our weather quarter, and was steering for the Gulf of San Fiorenzo.The appearance of this stranger naturally added very greatly to my anxiety. I could not in the least make up my mind as to her nationality, for she hoisted no colours in response to the “Vigilant’s” display of her ensign, and though she struck me as being thoroughly French, both in build and rig, I could not understand why she should be running for San Fiorenzo, if our fleet was there; while if it was not, it seemed pretty certain that I had run into what old Rawlings, the sailing-master, was wont to designate “the centre of a hobble,” in other words—a decided predicament. How to act, under the circumstances, I knew not; I was thoroughly embarrassed.Away to leeward was the “Vigilant,” in such a position that if we bore up we should be simply running straight into her clutches; up there to windward was this mysterious brig, from which there was no possibility of escape if we hauled our wind, while if we kept straight on we were still almost certain to fall into her hands, assuming that we were lucky enough to escape the “Vigilant.” Of course there was just a bare possibility of her being English, but if so her appearance strangely belied her.It seemed to me that the least imprudent thing to do would be to keep straight on as we were going, and this I accordingly did. I still felt very anxious to know for certain who and what this brig really was, and at last I determined to hoist the English flag over the French at our gaff-end, hoping that this signal would evoke some response; but as far as the brig was concerned it was entirely without effect.Not so, however, with regard to the “Vigilant;” the sight appeared to greatly irritate her worthy skipper, for he immediately hauled his wind, and very soon afterwards tried the effect of his long brass nine upon us. The shot fell short some sixty or seventy fathoms, but it was well aimed, and pretty conclusively demonstrated that Monsieur Durand was growing angry. Finding that we were as yet out of range, the lateener once more kept away upon her former course, evidently recognising the possibility that, if she did not, we might still slip past her.Another quarter of an hour brought us abreast of the Cape, and in about ten minutes more we had opened the town of San Fiorenzo. Well out in Mortella Bay a large fleet of ships lay at anchor, while much nearer the shore a 74-gun ship and a frigate were visible, also apparently at anchor, and briskly engaging a battery of some sort, which appeared to be built on a projecting point of land. At the same time the roar of the distant cannonade, which had been shut off from us by the intervening high land, was borne distinctly to our ears. Meanwhile the inscrutable brig had steadily pursued her course, without appearing to take the slightest notice of the little drama which was being enacted ahead of her, and now came foaming up upon our weather quarter, steering so as to shave close past our taffrail.I had by this time lost all doubt as to her nationality, though she still kept her bunting well out of sight; she was unmistakably French all over, from keel to truck. And though she was an enemy I could not help admiring the beautiful order and neatness which characterised her appearance: two qualities which were rarely to be witnessed on board French ships at that period. I was rather surprised that she had not pitched a shot across our fore-foot before this, as a delicate intimation that the time had arrived for us to heave-to; but as she had not, I began to entertain a faint glimmer of hope that she was engaged upon some special service of such importance that she could not spare time to interfere with us.It was evident that she had no intention of rounding-to, for there still stood her studding-sails without a sign of any preparation for taking them in. Our attention was now of course, for the moment, given exclusively to her; our curiosity being strongly roused as to her intentions. In another moment she swept magnificently across our stern, so closely that a bold leap would have carried a man from her weather cat-head down upon our deck; and as she did so we became aware of sundry tanned and bearded faces, some of which seemed familiar to me, peering curiously down upon us through her open half-ports. At the same moment a dapper young fellow in the uniform of a British midshipman sprang into the main-rigging, speaking-trumpet in hand, and hailed us somewhat in the following fashion,—“Cutter ahoy! who are you, and whither bound? and what is that piratical-looking craft down to leeward? If he is interfering with you, you had better bear up and follow in my wake; I’ll take care that—hilloa! if that isn’t Chester may I never—ahoy! Chester, old boy! don’t you knowme?—Bob Summers, you know. Up helm, old fellow; the ‘Juno’ is in there, and—”The rest was unintelligible, the brig being by this time too far away to allow of further conversation. Of course I bore up at once, for the brig being in English hands, I had no further occasion for anxiety with regard to the “Vigilant.” That craft, true to her name, had evidently been on the watch to see what would come of the meeting which had just taken place, and had already arrived at the conclusion that what had passed boded her no good, for the moment we bore up, she did the same, wearing short round upon her heel, and shaping a course, as nearly as we could judge, for Calvi. Bob, however, who was evidently burning to distinguish himself, seemed to regard this as a favourable opportunity for so doing, and promptly squared away, steering a course which would enable him to intercept the guarda-costa; we following steadily in his wake to witness the fun. Almost immediately afterwards we heard the shrill notes of the bo’sun’s whistle, followed by the hoarse bellowing sound in which that functionary is wont to transmit the commanding officer’s orders to the ship’s company. And occasionally we were gratified with the sight of Mr Bob Summers squinting curiously at us through his telescope, out of one of the stern-ports.The moment that the brig was fairly within range of the “Vigilant,” Bob bowled a 9-pound shot across that craft’s fore-foot, as an invitation to her to heave-to. Monsieur Durand, however, seemed in no humour for accepting any such invitation just then, for he immediately returned a decided negative from his long brass 9-pounder, sending the shot very cleverly through both Bob’s topsails, and narrowly missing the mainmast-head. I expected to see Master Bob round-to and deliver his whole broadside in retaliation—it would have been quite like him to do so; instead of this, however, he maintained a grim silence, notwithstanding that Monsieur Durand continued his efforts to cripple the brig. At length, however, Bob got within short pistol-shot of his adversary, and then in came his studding-sails, all together, down went his helm, andcrash! went his broadside of four 9-pounders into the devoted Frenchman, bringing his sails and his flag down by the run, together.As the brig rounded-to, her main-topsail was thrown aback, bringing her to a standstill directly to windward of the “Vigilant,” and within easy hailing distance. Then Master Bob hove into view in the main-rigging once more, still with the precious speaking-trumpet in his hand, and the guarda-costa was sternly ordered to surrender—as I afterwards learned, we being at the moment rather too far astern to hear what passed,—which she forthwith did. The cutter was thereupon lowered and manned, and a prize crew went on board to take possession, little Summers himself also going with the party.In the meantime we in the “Mouette” joined company, heaving-to close under the brig’s quarter, and making out for the first time the word “Requin” (Shark), which was painted on her stern in small red letters.After the lapse of perhaps a quarter of an hour the brig’s cutter shoved off from the side of the “Vigilant,” and in another minute Bob and I were shaking hands as vigorously as though we had not seen each other for years. As soon as he had done with me, the young rascal turned to Francesca, whereupon I introduced him in due form in French. Francesca at once frankly gave him her hand, and made a pretty little speech as to the happiness which it afforded her to make the acquaintance of any friend of her “cher Ralph,” etcetera, etcetera.Master Bob, whose knowledge of French was of the slenderest and most flimsy description, was in no wise disconcerted by being addressed in what was to him practically an unknown tongue. He bowed with all the elegance and grace he could muster, smiling meanwhile as suavely as he knew how, and finally responding somewhat in this style,—“Je suismost happya avez le plaisir a-makez votreacquaintance, Mile. Paoli.J’aialreadyl’honneur debeing partially acquainted withvotre oncle, General di Paoli, and a fine fellow he is. And—my eye! won’t he be surprised to see you? I only wish you could stay on boardle‘Juno,’ or, better still, take up your quarters aboard the brig, the skipper giving her of course to Chester and me with a roving commission. Thatwouldbe jolly; but there—what’s the use of thinking of such a thing? Of course it is ever so much too good to be true. By the way, Chester,”—turning to me—“have you dined yet? Neither have I. Now suppose we all go aboard the brig then; I’ll leave a couple of hands to help your crew here, and we can then make sail in company. I say, we shall present quite an imposing appearance as we bring-up in the roadstead. I expect the skipper will send for us on the quarter-deck, and thank us before all hands for our gallantry and important services.”Bob jumped into the boat alongside, as he concluded; I followed, and then Francesca stepped daintily down into the dancing craft, where the gallant Bob established her snugly in the stern-sheets, close alongside himself. He then seized the yoke-lines, gave the order to “shove off and give way” in his most authoritative manner, and in ten minutes more we were all three comfortably established in the cosy little cabin of the brig, with a very tolerable dinner on the table before us.

On reaching the port my first consideration was to discover a suitable craft in which to make the trip along the coast to the north end of the island. When it actually came to the point I must confess that the idea of seizing and carrying off the property of somebody else was extremely repugnant to me. Still, I could see no other course open without exposing the party to imminent danger of betrayal, and I had resolved in my own mind that, since necessity seemed to point to the deprivation of some unfortunate individual of his property, the deprivation should be only temporary; I would take the most suitable boat I could find, and when done with seek some means of returning her to her owner with a handsome sum of money as hire.

Having made up my mind so far, I took counsel with Giaccomo, who knew the place well, and he immediately ran over a list of craft belonging to the port, any one of which he thought would serve our purpose passably well. In the midst of his statement, however, he suddenly interrupted himself with many objurgations upon his own stupidity, to which he added a statement that he had just that instant thought of a craft which would suit us admirably, one, moreover, which we need not distress ourselves about returning.

“That sounds rather promising,” said I. “What is she, Giaccomo?”

“She is a pleasure-boat measuring about fifteen tons,” replied the man; “she is a very strange-looking craft, but she sails like the wind. She is the property of one of the French officers, who built her for his own amusement.”

“Then,” said I, “if she is likely to suit us, we will certainly make a prize of her without compunction. Lead on, my man, and let us see if we can find her.”

We went on some distance further until we came to the waterside, not meeting with a single soul on the way, and there we helped ourselves to a rowing-boat and pulled out into the bay, where, according to Giaccomo’s account, we should find her if she then happened to be in port.

We pulled through a large fleet of fishing-boats, coasting feluccas, and other craft, mostly of a size ranging from two to fifty tons, and at length, just as I was beginning to think our search would be in vain, Giaccomo exclaimed,—

“There she is!”

I looked in the direction indicated, and saw a long low-hulled craft, cutter-rigged, with what struck me as a set of spars altogether disproportionate to her size.

“Oh!” I exclaimed in a tone of disappointment, “shewill never do. Why, she would capsize with half a capful of wind.”

“By no means, signor,” replied the Corsican. “Though yew would never believe it, to look at her, she carries her canvas better and longer than any boat belonging to Ajaccio, and as for working to windward—she is simply astounding.”

“If that be so,” said I, “let us paddle up alongside and take a look at her.”

We did so, and on a nearer inspection found her to be, according to the then prevalent ideas concerning naval architecture, quite as extraordinary as Giaccomo had described her to be. She was about five times as long as she was wide, with a bow like a fine wedge, a good clean run, and very little freeboard; she was in fact a singular foreshadowing of the modern type of racing cutter, and consequently, at that date, absolutely unique.

I was rather taken with her appearance, and my curiosity, moreover, being strongly excited by the marvellous stories told by Giaccomo respecting her sailing powers,—which, he asserted, he had had frequent opportunities of observing, from having been occasionally engaged to accompany her owner on his cruises,—I decided forthwith to take possession of her as a lawful prize. Mooring the boat alongside we accordingly crept softly on board, and Giaccomo immediately descended into the little forecastle to ascertain whether any one happened to be on board. The forecastle proved to be empty, but on going down into the cabin we saw by the feeble glimmer of the cabin lamp a lad of about eighteen comfortably stretched out on the cushions laid along upon the top of the lockers.

Drawing his long knife from its sheath, Giaccomo unceremoniously broke in upon the slumbers of this youth, and brandishing the gleaming blade before his astonished eyes, while admonishing him in a fierce whisper not to utter a sound above his breath if he placed the slightest value upon his life, he ordered him to enumerate what stores there were on board, and to indicate their locality. This the lad did, leading us first to a small but well-arranged pantry, and then opening the lockers and exhibiting their contents. A brief survey was sufficient to satisfy me that the craft was amply provisioned for our cruise, and this matter being thus satisfactorily settled, we repaired to the deck and proceeded to loose the sails and get the cutter under way; the lad whom we had so roughly aroused being persuaded by occasional suggestive exhibitions of Giaccomo’s knife to render his best assistance in the task.

While the two were thus engaged, I conducted Francesca below, and having indicated to her the small but luxuriously-furnished sleeping cabin of the owner, proposed that she should take possession thereof, and endeavour to recruit her somewhat exhausted energies by procuring, if possible, a few hours’ sleep. I then returned to the deck, and found my “crew” in the act of getting up the anchor. This was soon done, the head-sails were trimmed, and under a gentle westerly breeze we proceeded to work out of the bay.

As the cutter had a boat of her own towing astern, I cast adrift the one we had “borrowed,” and left her to take her chance of drifting ashore and finding her way once more into her proper owner’s hands.

Shortly after leaving our anchorage we passed close to leeward of a long rakish-looking lateener, on board which, as ill-luck would have it, an anchor-watch was being kept. I suppose the circumstance of our getting under way at so unusual an hour must have attracted attention on board this craft, at all events the casting adrift of the shore-boat had been observed; and as we approached we were hailed from her deck with an inquiry as to whether we were aware that one of our boats had gone adrift.

“Ay, ay,” replied Giaccomo, “we know it; it is all right: we shall pick her up presently, but we do not care to tack just now in this light wind for fear of— Diavolo! hold your tongue, you son of a boiled monkey, or I will let daylight into you on one side and out on the other.”

The latter part of this speech had been addressed to our prisoner, who, encouraged by the close proximity of the two vessels, had without a sign of warning lifted up his voice and shouted with all the power of his lungs,—

“Perfidie! nous som—” The remainder of the sentence had been choked back by the iron grasp of Giaccomo’s hand upon the lad’s throat, the dagger being flashed before his eyes and the threat hissed into his ears at the same moment.

But it was enough, the mischief had been done. As we glided past the craft’s stern we saw the man on watch dart to the companion and disappear, returning to the deck in less than a minute, accompanied by another individual, whose fluttering white garment sufficiently indicated that he had come direct from his berth without waiting to observe the decencies of ordinary life. He, too, hailed us, but we wasted no breath in attempting to reply, fully aware that nothing we could say would allay the suspicion which had been aroused. Instead therefore of shouting back, and possibly attracting the attention of other craft, we devoted all our energies to trimming our canvas to the best advantage, and packing upon the cutter every rag we could set.

“Per Baccho!” ejaculated Giaccomo between his set teeth, addressing the author of the mischief, and emphasising his remarks with a smart prod of the knife in the most fleshy part of that misguided individual’s person, “I have a great mind to slash your throat open, and then launch you overboard as a breakfast to the sharks. You have drawn upon us the attention of that rascally guarda-costa, the captain of which will not be satisfied until he has received a full explanation of your remark. But, maledetto! remember this, the moment our capture seems certain I will slit you up as I would a sardine,”—appropriate gesture with the knife,—“so if you object to being slit open like a sardine you will give me all the help you can. You comprehend?”

The lad comprehended so well that he was frightened half out of his wits, and went round the deck, taking an extra pull here, easing off half an inch of sheet there, shifting the water-casks, and, in short, doing all he knew to increase the speed of the cutter, glancing anxiously astern at the guarda-costa in the intervals, and from her to his dreaded shipmate.

Of course I am aware that I ought to have interfered and put a stop to this terrorism on the part of the hot-blooded Corsican, and Ishouldhave done so, had there appeared any probability of his executing his sanguinary threats; but I had already seen enough of him to believe that his bark was a great deal worse than his bite, and so, as the prisoner had evidently got us into what might prove a very awkward scrape, I was willing that he should not be allowed to go altogether unpunished.

It was even as Giaccomo had foreseen. We were scarcely a mile from the guarda-costa when we saw her canvas drooping in heavy festoons from her long tapering yards, and by the time that we had increased our distance to a couple of miles her anchor was a-trip, and she was sweeping round on her way out after us.

I called my aide aft and asked him whether he knew the craft.

“Too well, signor,” he replied. “It has been my lot to be chased by her often, and many an anxious moment has she caused me. She has the name of being the fastest sailer inside the Gut, and she is the terror of every honest smuggler round the coast here.”

“Ho, ho!” said I. “So that is how the land lies, is it, master Giaccomo? You have been a bit of a smuggler in your time, eh?”

“Yes,” he frankly returned, “and not so very long ago either. And I should have been taken to a certainty, had not a shot from one of your cruisers turned yonder inquisitive gentleman back.”

“Let us hope we may meet with a similar slice of luck this time,” said I. “Do you think we stand any chance of getting away from her?”

“Everything depends on the weather,” was the reply. “In light winds, such as this, I have never seen anything to approach this cutter for speed; but should it come on to blow, the ‘Vigilant’ will run us under water.”

This was a singularly agreeable piece of information to receive just at that moment, for the sky had gradually become flecked with fast-flying patches of scud, and a dark threatening bank of cloud was working up to windward. So far, however, the breeze remained light, and while we were gliding through the water at the rate of something like five knots, with scarcely a ripple under our bows to indicate the fact, the guarda-costa appeared to have little beyond bare steerage-way.

At first I was sanguine enough to hope that, seeing how we slipped away from her, the lateener would ’bout ship, and return to her moorings; but nothing of the kind: she held on like grim death, her skipper, no doubt, being seaman enough to read in the increasingly-threatening aspect of the heavens a promise that his turn should come by-and-by.

In the meantime the wind grew rapidly lighter until it became “breathless” calm; and there we both lay, heaving sluggishly on the long swell, our sails flapping idly from side to side, and our bows boxing the compass.

The cloud-bank meanwhile had been steadily rising, and at length it completely veiled the sky, obscuring first the stars, and finally the moon, and enveloping the whole face of nature in a mantle of inky blackness. So intense was this darkness that we lost sight of the guarda-costa, the land, and in fact everything save the two or three riding-lights which the more prudent of the skippers had chosen to display on board their craft in the roadstead.

A breathless hush prevailed, broken only by the loud creak of our boom and the flap of the sails. Giaccomo and his shipmate, or prisoner—whichever the reader likes—were somewhere forward, probably sitting down; but it was impossible to see them in the impenetrable darkness.

I called Giaccomo aft, and his voice, when he spoke in reply, sounded strange, weird, and unnatural. I considered the aspect of the sky portentous in the extreme, but I wished to have his opinion, as that of a man accustomed to the weather of that region, and I asked him what he thought of it.

“We shall have it down upon us very heavily before long,” he replied; “but I do not think it will last above three or four hours.”

“Then we had better bear a hand and shorten sail,” said I. “You take in the gaff-topsail, and bowse down a double reef in the mainsail, and I will in foresail and shift the jib. I suppose there is a storm-jib somewhere on board?”

“Down in the locker, forward,” said he. “Be careful to close the hatch securely when you come up, signor, or we shall be swamped in less than ten minutes; she will bury herself in the breeze that we are going to have.”

We all three worked like Trojans, and in a remarkably short space of time had the “Mouette”—as I found the cutter was named—under double-reefed mainsail and storm-jib, the latter well in along the bowsprit, with topmast lowered as far as it would come, the fore-hatch and cabin skylight battened down, and everything made snug and ready for a regular stand-up fight with the elements.

While we were busy with these preparations, I admonished Giaccomo to keep a smart lookout, and I was careful also to do the same myself, in case the guarda-costa should endeavour to cut matters short by sending away a boat after us; but the man assured me that the skipper of the craft knew too well what he was about to risk the loss of a boat’s crew by sending them away under such threatening conditions of weather.

Smart as we had been in making our preparations, we were only barely in time. We had just comfortably completed our work, and I had established myself at the tiller, with Giaccomo at the mainsheet, and François—as the French lad called himself—at the jib-sheet, when there came a terrific flash of lightning, green and baleful, illumining for a single instant the entire scene, and revealing our pertinacious friend, the “Vigilant,” in her old berth astern, with her long tapering yards lowered to the deck, and two stumpy lugs and a pocket-handkerchief of a jib hoisted in their place. Then, as the opaque darkness closed down upon us again, there followed the long deep reverberating roll of the thunder. Another vivid flash quickly succeeded, the thunder this time being much louder and nearer; and then, after a pause of about a minute, there came a perfectblastof lightning, so intensely bright that the whole atmosphere appeared for one brief moment to be literally on fire. Simultaneously with the flash came the awful deafening crackling crash of the thunder, the terrific detonations of which completely stunned and unnerved me while they lasted, so overpowering were they in comparison with anything of the kind which I had before heard. We had scarcely time to recover our hearing before we became conscious of a hissing roaring sound in the atmosphere, momentarily increasing in intensity, and, looking to windward, there appeared in startling relief against the sable background a long line of luminous milky foam rushing down toward us from the horizon. In an incredibly short time the squall was upon us. On it came, like a howling fiend, over the tortured surface of the ocean, causing it to hiss and seethe like the contents of a boiling cauldron, and striking the cutter with such resistless fury that she went over helplessly before it, burying her lee-rail so deeply in the brine that her sails lay prostrate upon the surface of the water.

Each of us instinctively shouted to the others to “hold on,” grasping at the same moment whatever came nearest. I managed somehow to clamber up the deck, as the cutter went over, and, passing out over the low bulwarks, established myself on the upturned side of the little craft. Giaccomo had done the same, while François was standing on the side of the cabin-companion, and clinging convulsively with both hands to the weather-rail.

Crawling up to the side of the Corsican, I placed my mouth to his ear and shouted,—

“Do you think you can cut away the mast?”

“No! no! no!” he earnestly returned. “See, signor, her head is paying-off, and she will come up again in a minute or two; shecannotturn over altogether, her ballast is too well secured for that, and she will not fill even if she remains thus for half an hour yet; no water can get below except through the companion, and the doors fit so well that very little will get down even through them. See there, she is coming up again already.”

It was even so. While the man was speaking, the cutter’s bows had been rapidly paying-off, until we headed, as nearly as we could guess, straight for the shore; when, the pressure of the wind being no longer upon her broadside, the heavy ballast had gradually dragged the yacht into an upright position, and we had, somewhat precipitately, to scramble inboard again.

The moment that the yacht recovered herself, the wind of course caught her sails, and away we at once started to leeward with the speed of a hunted stag. This, however, would never do; the shore was straight ahead, and, at the rate at which we were travelling, twenty minutes would have seen us dashed into matchwood upon the rocks.

Very cautiously, therefore, we brought her upon a wind, and though, when we again got broadside-to, she threatened to go over once more with us, we managed by careful manipulation of the sheets to avoid such a catastrophe; and when we had got her once fairly jammed close upon a wind, some former experience of mine in cutter sailing enabled me to keep her right side uppermost. But it was perilous work for a good hour after the squall struck us. I have occasionally seen in my later days some bold and even reckless match-sailing, but I have never yet seen a craft so desperately overdriven as was, perforce, the little “Mouette” on that memorable night. While the first strength of the gale lasted we were literally under water the whole time, the sea boiling and foaming in over our bows, and sweeping away aft and out over the taffrail in a continuous flood.

I believe we should have sailed faster, and we should assuredly have made much better weather of it, had we been able to get a close reef down in the mainsail; but under the circumstances this was impossible, since, being so short-handed, it would have delayed us long enough to allow the “Vigilant” to get alongside us before we had got through with the work. There was, therefore, nothing for it, but to keep on as we were, the cutter heeling over to an angle of quite 50 deg., so that we were really standing upon the inside of the lee bulwark, with our backs resting against the steeply-inclined deck, up above our knees in the sea, beneath which the little craft’s lee-rail was deeply buried; while, owing to our great speed, we rushedthroughinstead of riding over the sea which was rapidly getting up, so that, when an unusually heavy “comber” met us, we were literallyburiedfor the moment, while it swept over us.

Luckily the first mad fury of the blast lasted only for two or three minutes, or our mast could never have resisted the tremendous strain upon it; as it was, stout though the spar—absurdly disproportionate to the size of the craft, I then considered it—it swayed and bent like a fishing-rod, causing the lee-rigging to blow out quite in bights, while that to windward was strained as taut as harp-strings, the resemblance to which was increased by the weird sound of the wind as it shrieked through it.

Scarcely had the tempest burst upon us before the veil of cloud which had obscured the heavens was rent to shreds by its fury, the sky was cleared as if by magic, the moon and stars reappeared—the former low down upon the horizon,—and we had an uninterrupted view of the wild scene around us.

We were heading straight out from the land, and sailing so close to the wind that we were taking the seas nearly stem-on; and I frankly confess that my heart was, metaphorically speaking, in my mouth for the greatest part of that night, while watching the little craft rush bodily into the steep slope of wave after wave, and felt her quiver like a frightened thing as they swept hissing and seething over our heads. My admiration for the skill of her builder was boundless; for, had I not witnessed the cutter’s achievements, I could never have credited the power of wood and iron to successfully resist such a terrific strain and battering as she received.

When the first wild struggle for existence was over, and we had fairly settled down to our work in that mad life-or-death race, we had time to look round and see how our opponent had come out of the struggle. We had not far to look. There she was, about three miles to leeward, and well on our quarter, dashing gallantly on; now rushing upward upon the crest of a wave, amid a deluge of spray, and lifting her fore-foot out of the water as though about to leave the element altogether and take flight into the air, like a startled sea-bird; and anon plunging down into the trough until only a small portion of the heads of her sails was visible. She was evidently making much better weather of it than we were; but on the other hand half-an-hour’s patient observation revealed to us the comforting fact that, notwithstanding her vaunted speed, we were both head-reaching and weathering upon her.

Satisfied at length that this was actually the case, I asked Giaccomo what he now thought of our chances of escape.

“We shall get away from her,” he replied exultingly. “I have no longer any fear ofher; what I now dread is the possibility of the cutter foundering from under us. There must be a considerable amount of water making its way into her interior, with the sea sweeping over us thus incessantly; indeed, I am convinced that we are sensibly deeper in the water than we were.”

“Do you think you could manage to get the pump under way?” I asked.

“I wouldtry,” he replied; “but the well is on the larboard side, close by my feet, and deep under water.”

“Then,” said I, “we must endeavour to get her round upon the other tack. We will watch for a ‘smooth,’ and directly it comes, you and François must round-in upon the mainsheet. Are you both ready?”

They replied in the affirmative, and after watching in vain for some five minutes, a terrific sea burst over us, burying the craft—as it seemed to me—nearly half-way up her mast, and beyond it the water was comparatively smooth.

“In with it!” I gasped, as we came out on the other side of this liquid hill. They gathered in the sheet as though their lives depended on it, and at the same moment I eased off the weather tiller-rope, and gave the craft her head. She surged up into the wind, her canvas flapping so furiously that it threatened to shake the mast out of her; her lee-gunwale appeared above the surface, and placing my feet against the tiller I pressed it gradually over, helping her round while stopping her way as little as possible; a sea rushed up and struck her on the port-bow, sending her head well off on the other tack, the jib-sheet was promptly hauled over, the mainsail filled, and as we hurriedly scrambled over to the other side of the deck and secured ourselves anew with lashings round our waists, the “Mouette” plunged forward on the larboard tack, looking well up to windward and heading about due north.

The fixing and rigging of the pump was a work of considerable difficulty and danger, but it was eventually done; and then Giaccomo and François, placing themselves one on each side, set resolutely to work, with the determination of not leaving off as long as a drop of water would flow from the spout.

The clear stream which gushed out as soon as the brake was set going showed us unmistakably that we had not begun a moment too soon, and had we still entertained any doubt upon this point, it would have been dispelled by the length of time it took to clear the little craft of water. It was broad daylight when at length Giaccomo panted triumphantly,—

“There she sucks!”

Just before sun-rise we noticed the first indications of a break in the gale, and by eight o’clock it had so far moderated that our lee-rail was just awash, and instead of diving through the seas, as we had been ever since the gale struck us, the cutter managed to rise over everything but the heaviest. It was still too wet forward to permit of taking off the forecastle-hatch, but communication between cabin and forecastle could be effected by means of a sliding door in the bulkhead; so François was sent below with instructions to prepare a thorough good breakfast, with plenty of hot coffee—which, let me say, I have found infinitely more comforting and refreshing than spirits, after long exposure to wet or cold, or both combined.

After the setting of the moon we had lost sight of the guarda-costa until dawn once more betrayed her whereabouts. When first seen she was hull-down and about three points on our lee quarter, still under her two lugs and jib. So far, this was satisfactory; we had walked fairly away from her in her own weather, and Giaccomo was in ecstasies.

“Ah!” he chuckled, “Monsieur Leroux would have almost forgiven us for running away with his ‘Mouette,’ had he been here to see what a shameful beating she has given the ‘Vigilant.’ The story is sure to leak out through some of the lateener’s people, and poor old Lieutenant Durand, who commands her, will not dare to show himself ashore at Ajaccio, he will be so laughed at.”

But the guarda-costa’s people had no idea of tamely accepting their defeat as final. No sooner was it light enough for them to fairly make us out, than they shifted their sails, substituting single-reefed lateens for the lugs, and taking in their storm-jib out of the way. Their increased spread of canvas soon told a tale, for before half an hour had passed it became evident that they were gaining upon us, going faster through the water, that is; but she did not appear to weather on us much, if at all. The fact that the “Vigilant” was overhauling us, however, gave me very little uneasiness, for I calculated that, as we were both then sailing, it would take her quite three hours to get within gunshot of us, and probably another half-hour before there would be much probability of her hitting us, and by that time I expected we should be within four hours’ sail of San Fiorenzo, where I fully expected to find the old “Juno,” and probably a few more of our own ships; and I thought it very doubtful whether the Frenchmen would keep up the chase so far as that, for fear of running into a trap and being themselves caught.

We therefore went to breakfast with tolerably easy minds, to say nothing of good appetites, and thoroughly enjoyed the meal,—a most sumptuous one, considering the place and the circumstances of its preparation,—Giaccomo condescending so far to relax the sternness of his demeanour to François as to pat that individual approvingly on the shoulder, and to assure him that such cookery went far to atone for his extraordinary indiscretion of the night before.

Francesca sat down to breakfast with us, having quite unexpectedly made her appearance on deck, fresh, blooming, and cheerful, about half an hour before. To my unbounded surprise, she assured me that she had passed a very tolerable night, having indeed been sound asleep for the greater portion of the time. She had been somewhat alarmed when the cutter was thrown upon her beam-ends, but had not been in the least incommoded by the accident, nor indeed aware of its full extent, the cot upon which she was lying being a very ingenious affair, so contrived that it always maintained a perfectly horizontal position, no matter how much the cutter rolled and pitched, nor how greatly she heeled over. This was very gratifying news to me, for I fully expected to see her appear in the morning excessively frightened, and possibly very seriously bruised by the violent motion of the little craft in which she had passed so adventurous a night.

By the time that we had all breakfasted the wind had so far moderated that it became necessary to make sail upon the cutter; the “Vigilant” having crept up well abeam of us, though still hull-down and apparently close in with the land. We accordingly shook both reefs out of the mainsail, and got the foresail and working-jib set, with which canvas we rushed along in true racing style, our lee-rail well buried, and the craft taking just enough weather-helm to allow of her being steered to a hair’s-breadth. Her performance perfectly enchanted me; I had never seen anything like it before, and to my unaccustomed eyes she seemed fairly to fly. Even Giaccomo and François, both of whom had repeatedly sailed in her, asserted that they had never seen her do so well before.

When we again had time to take a glance to leeward at the “Vigilant,” we discovered that well-named craft bowling along under whole canvas, and evidently trying her hardest to head-reach upon us. For the first half-hour we endeavoured to flatter ourselves that we were still holding our own, but at the end of that time such self-deception was no longer possible; the breeze suited us admirably, but there was still too much sea for the little “Mouette,” and the “Vigilant’s” superior power at length began to tell. Had they carried sail as recklessly through the night as we had, there can be no doubt they would have been alongside of us by daylight. By this time, too, we were abreast of Calvi, and were able to bear away with a beam wind for Acciajola Point, round which, and at the bottom of the bay, lay San Fiorenzo, our destination. Our altered course gave our opponent a further advantage by bringing her a couple of points before our beam, and we had the mortification of seeing that the craft was edging out to intercept us, and would, to a moral certainty, cut us off before we could reach the headland.

Still, I resolved to stand on, and trust to the chapter of accidents for our ultimate escape. If the change in our course had given the “Vigilant” one important advantage, it had given us another, to which I attached quite as much weight; it had brought the wind and sea abeam, and permitted us to ease up our sheets, while the sea no longer retarded us: it also permitted us to set a little extra canvas, and we accordingly lost no time in getting our topmast on end and setting the gaff-topsail, after which we could do nothing but sit still and anxiously watch the result.

Meanwhile the two vessels were rapidly converging upon a point distant about a mile from Cape Acciajola. The wind continued to drop, the sea going down at the same time; and as the morning advanced and the weather became lighter, we appeared to be once more getting rather the advantage of our pertinacious antagonist. So completely was our attention engaged by the “Vigilant,” that it was not until that craft had hoisted her colours that we became aware of the fact that a new actor had appeared upon the scene, and was within seven miles of us. This was a brig, which when we first caught sight of her was running in for the land from the W.S.W., with every stitch of canvas set that would draw, including lower, topmast, and topgallant studding-sails on her port side. She lay about three points on our weather quarter, and was steering for the Gulf of San Fiorenzo.

The appearance of this stranger naturally added very greatly to my anxiety. I could not in the least make up my mind as to her nationality, for she hoisted no colours in response to the “Vigilant’s” display of her ensign, and though she struck me as being thoroughly French, both in build and rig, I could not understand why she should be running for San Fiorenzo, if our fleet was there; while if it was not, it seemed pretty certain that I had run into what old Rawlings, the sailing-master, was wont to designate “the centre of a hobble,” in other words—a decided predicament. How to act, under the circumstances, I knew not; I was thoroughly embarrassed.

Away to leeward was the “Vigilant,” in such a position that if we bore up we should be simply running straight into her clutches; up there to windward was this mysterious brig, from which there was no possibility of escape if we hauled our wind, while if we kept straight on we were still almost certain to fall into her hands, assuming that we were lucky enough to escape the “Vigilant.” Of course there was just a bare possibility of her being English, but if so her appearance strangely belied her.

It seemed to me that the least imprudent thing to do would be to keep straight on as we were going, and this I accordingly did. I still felt very anxious to know for certain who and what this brig really was, and at last I determined to hoist the English flag over the French at our gaff-end, hoping that this signal would evoke some response; but as far as the brig was concerned it was entirely without effect.

Not so, however, with regard to the “Vigilant;” the sight appeared to greatly irritate her worthy skipper, for he immediately hauled his wind, and very soon afterwards tried the effect of his long brass nine upon us. The shot fell short some sixty or seventy fathoms, but it was well aimed, and pretty conclusively demonstrated that Monsieur Durand was growing angry. Finding that we were as yet out of range, the lateener once more kept away upon her former course, evidently recognising the possibility that, if she did not, we might still slip past her.

Another quarter of an hour brought us abreast of the Cape, and in about ten minutes more we had opened the town of San Fiorenzo. Well out in Mortella Bay a large fleet of ships lay at anchor, while much nearer the shore a 74-gun ship and a frigate were visible, also apparently at anchor, and briskly engaging a battery of some sort, which appeared to be built on a projecting point of land. At the same time the roar of the distant cannonade, which had been shut off from us by the intervening high land, was borne distinctly to our ears. Meanwhile the inscrutable brig had steadily pursued her course, without appearing to take the slightest notice of the little drama which was being enacted ahead of her, and now came foaming up upon our weather quarter, steering so as to shave close past our taffrail.

I had by this time lost all doubt as to her nationality, though she still kept her bunting well out of sight; she was unmistakably French all over, from keel to truck. And though she was an enemy I could not help admiring the beautiful order and neatness which characterised her appearance: two qualities which were rarely to be witnessed on board French ships at that period. I was rather surprised that she had not pitched a shot across our fore-foot before this, as a delicate intimation that the time had arrived for us to heave-to; but as she had not, I began to entertain a faint glimmer of hope that she was engaged upon some special service of such importance that she could not spare time to interfere with us.

It was evident that she had no intention of rounding-to, for there still stood her studding-sails without a sign of any preparation for taking them in. Our attention was now of course, for the moment, given exclusively to her; our curiosity being strongly roused as to her intentions. In another moment she swept magnificently across our stern, so closely that a bold leap would have carried a man from her weather cat-head down upon our deck; and as she did so we became aware of sundry tanned and bearded faces, some of which seemed familiar to me, peering curiously down upon us through her open half-ports. At the same moment a dapper young fellow in the uniform of a British midshipman sprang into the main-rigging, speaking-trumpet in hand, and hailed us somewhat in the following fashion,—

“Cutter ahoy! who are you, and whither bound? and what is that piratical-looking craft down to leeward? If he is interfering with you, you had better bear up and follow in my wake; I’ll take care that—hilloa! if that isn’t Chester may I never—ahoy! Chester, old boy! don’t you knowme?—Bob Summers, you know. Up helm, old fellow; the ‘Juno’ is in there, and—”

The rest was unintelligible, the brig being by this time too far away to allow of further conversation. Of course I bore up at once, for the brig being in English hands, I had no further occasion for anxiety with regard to the “Vigilant.” That craft, true to her name, had evidently been on the watch to see what would come of the meeting which had just taken place, and had already arrived at the conclusion that what had passed boded her no good, for the moment we bore up, she did the same, wearing short round upon her heel, and shaping a course, as nearly as we could judge, for Calvi. Bob, however, who was evidently burning to distinguish himself, seemed to regard this as a favourable opportunity for so doing, and promptly squared away, steering a course which would enable him to intercept the guarda-costa; we following steadily in his wake to witness the fun. Almost immediately afterwards we heard the shrill notes of the bo’sun’s whistle, followed by the hoarse bellowing sound in which that functionary is wont to transmit the commanding officer’s orders to the ship’s company. And occasionally we were gratified with the sight of Mr Bob Summers squinting curiously at us through his telescope, out of one of the stern-ports.

The moment that the brig was fairly within range of the “Vigilant,” Bob bowled a 9-pound shot across that craft’s fore-foot, as an invitation to her to heave-to. Monsieur Durand, however, seemed in no humour for accepting any such invitation just then, for he immediately returned a decided negative from his long brass 9-pounder, sending the shot very cleverly through both Bob’s topsails, and narrowly missing the mainmast-head. I expected to see Master Bob round-to and deliver his whole broadside in retaliation—it would have been quite like him to do so; instead of this, however, he maintained a grim silence, notwithstanding that Monsieur Durand continued his efforts to cripple the brig. At length, however, Bob got within short pistol-shot of his adversary, and then in came his studding-sails, all together, down went his helm, andcrash! went his broadside of four 9-pounders into the devoted Frenchman, bringing his sails and his flag down by the run, together.

As the brig rounded-to, her main-topsail was thrown aback, bringing her to a standstill directly to windward of the “Vigilant,” and within easy hailing distance. Then Master Bob hove into view in the main-rigging once more, still with the precious speaking-trumpet in his hand, and the guarda-costa was sternly ordered to surrender—as I afterwards learned, we being at the moment rather too far astern to hear what passed,—which she forthwith did. The cutter was thereupon lowered and manned, and a prize crew went on board to take possession, little Summers himself also going with the party.

In the meantime we in the “Mouette” joined company, heaving-to close under the brig’s quarter, and making out for the first time the word “Requin” (Shark), which was painted on her stern in small red letters.

After the lapse of perhaps a quarter of an hour the brig’s cutter shoved off from the side of the “Vigilant,” and in another minute Bob and I were shaking hands as vigorously as though we had not seen each other for years. As soon as he had done with me, the young rascal turned to Francesca, whereupon I introduced him in due form in French. Francesca at once frankly gave him her hand, and made a pretty little speech as to the happiness which it afforded her to make the acquaintance of any friend of her “cher Ralph,” etcetera, etcetera.

Master Bob, whose knowledge of French was of the slenderest and most flimsy description, was in no wise disconcerted by being addressed in what was to him practically an unknown tongue. He bowed with all the elegance and grace he could muster, smiling meanwhile as suavely as he knew how, and finally responding somewhat in this style,—

“Je suismost happya avez le plaisir a-makez votreacquaintance, Mile. Paoli.J’aialreadyl’honneur debeing partially acquainted withvotre oncle, General di Paoli, and a fine fellow he is. And—my eye! won’t he be surprised to see you? I only wish you could stay on boardle‘Juno,’ or, better still, take up your quarters aboard the brig, the skipper giving her of course to Chester and me with a roving commission. Thatwouldbe jolly; but there—what’s the use of thinking of such a thing? Of course it is ever so much too good to be true. By the way, Chester,”—turning to me—“have you dined yet? Neither have I. Now suppose we all go aboard the brig then; I’ll leave a couple of hands to help your crew here, and we can then make sail in company. I say, we shall present quite an imposing appearance as we bring-up in the roadstead. I expect the skipper will send for us on the quarter-deck, and thank us before all hands for our gallantry and important services.”

Bob jumped into the boat alongside, as he concluded; I followed, and then Francesca stepped daintily down into the dancing craft, where the gallant Bob established her snugly in the stern-sheets, close alongside himself. He then seized the yoke-lines, gave the order to “shove off and give way” in his most authoritative manner, and in ten minutes more we were all three comfortably established in the cosy little cabin of the brig, with a very tolerable dinner on the table before us.

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