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the harbor itself. He also perceived that the light anchor, or large
kedge, by which le Feu-Follet rode, was under foot, as seamen term it;
or that the cable was nearly "up and down." With a wave of the hand he
communicated a new order, and then he saw that the men were raising the
kedge from the bottom. By the time his foot touched the deck, indeed,
the anchor was up and stowed, and nothing held the vessel but the line
that had been run to the quay. Fifty pairs of hands were applied to this
line, and the lugger advanced rapidly toward her place of shelter. But
an artifice was practised to prevent her heading into the harbor's
mouth, the line having been brought inboard abaft her larboard cathead,
a circumstance which necessarily gave her a sheer in the contrary
direction, or to the eastward of the entrance. When the reader remembers
that the scale on which the port had been constructed was small, the
entrance scarce exceeding a hundred feet in width, he will better
understand the situation of things. Seemingly to aid the movement, too,
the jigger was set, and the wind being south, or directly aft, the
lugger's motion was soon light and rapid. As the vessel drew nearer to
the entrance, her people made a run with the line and gave her a
movement of some three or four knots to the hour, actually threatening
to dash her bows against the pier-head. But Raoul Yvard contemplated no
such blunder. At the proper moment the line was cut, the helm was put
a-port, the lugger's head sheered to starboard, and just as Vito Viti,
who witnessed all without comprehending more than half that passed, was
shouting his vivas and animating all near him with his cries, the lugger
glided past the end of the harbor, on its outside, however, instead of
entering it. So completely was every one taken by surprise by this
evolution that the first impression was of some mistake, accident, or
blunder of the helmsman, and cries of regret followed, lest the frigate
might have it in her power to profit by the mishap. The flapping of
canvas, notwithstanding, showed that no time was lost, and presently le
Feu-Follet shot by an opening between the warehouses, under all sail. At
this critical instant the frigate, which saw what passed, but which had
been deceived like all the rest, and supposed the lugger was hauling
into the haven, tacked and came round with her head to the westward. But
intending to fetch well into the bay, she had stretched so far over
to