ason there ought to be,
seeing that an acre of good productive land is worth five or six of
oceans; and then you have little knowledge of my character and prospects
to ask such a question. I sarve the king of England to make him pay well
for it. If you want to take an advantage of a man, first get him in
debt; then you can work your will on him in the most profitable and
safe manner!"

All this was unintelligible to the vice-governatore, who, after a few
more questions and answers, took a civil leave of the strangers,
intimating to Benedetta that they were not to follow him back into the
room he had just quitted.

As for Ithuel, the disappearance of the two gentlemen gave him no
concern; but as he felt that it might be unsafe to drink any more wine,
he threw down his reckoning, and strolled into the street, followed by
his companion. Within an hour from that moment, the three kegs of
tobacco were in the possession of a shopkeeper of the place, that brief
interval sufficing to enable the man to make his bargain, and to deliver
the articles, which was his real object on shore. This little smuggling
transaction was carried on altogether without the knowledge of Raoul
Yvard, who was to all intents and purposes the captain of his own
lugger, and in whose character there were many traits of chivalrous
honor, mixed up with habits and pursuits that would not seem to promise
qualities so elevated. But this want of a propensity to turn a penny in
his own way was not the only distinguishing characteristic between the
commander of the little craft and the being he occasionally used as a
mask to his true purposes.

CHAPTER V.

"The great contention of the sea and skies
Parted our fellowship;--But, hark! a sail!"

Cassio

Whatever may have been the result of the vice-governatore's further
inquiries and speculations that night, they were not known. After
consuming an hour in the lower part of the town, in and around the port,
he and the podesta sought their homes and their pillows, leaving the
lugger riding quietly at her anchor in the spot where she was last
presented to the reader's attention. If Raoul Yvard and Ghita had
another interview, too, it was so secretly managed as to escape all
observation, and can form no part of this narrative.

A Mediterranean morning, at midsummer, is one of those balmy and
soothing periods of the day that affect the mind as well as the body.
Everywhere we have the mel