that
of numbers.

In the mean while the Proserpine pressed on, and in ten minutes more she
was not only out of the range, but beyond the reach of shot. As she
opened the bay west of the town le Feu-Follet was seen from her decks,
fully a league ahead, close on a wind, the breeze hauling round the
western end of the island, glancing through the water at a rate that
rendered pursuit more than doubtful. Still the ship persevered, and in
little more than an hour from the time she had crowded sail she was up
with the western extremity of the hills, through more than a mile to the
leeward. Here she met the fair southern breeze, uninfluenced by the
land, as it came through the pass between Corsica and Elba, and got a
clear view of the work before her. The studding-sails and royals had
been taken in twenty minutes earlier; the bowlines were now all hauled,
and the frigate was brought close upon the wind. Still the chase was
evidently hopeless, the little Feu-Follet having everything as much to
her mind as if she had ordered the weather expressly to show her powers.
With her sheets flattened in until her canvas stood like boards, her
head looked fully a point to windward of that of the ship, and, what was
of equal importance, she even went to windward of the point she looked
at, while the Proserpine, if anything, fell off a little, though but a
very little, from her own course. Under all these differences the lugger
went through the water six feet to the frigate's five, beating her in
speed almost as much as she did in her weatherly qualities.

The vessel to windward was not the first lugger, by fifty, that Captain
Cuffe had assisted in chasing, and he knew the hopelessness of following
such a craft under circumstances so directly adapted to its qualities.
Then he was far from certain that he was pursuing an enemy at all,
whatever distrust the signals may have excited, since she had clearly
come out of a friendly port. Bastia, too, lay within a few hours' run,
and there was the whole of the east coast of Corsica, abounding with
small bays and havens, in which a vessel of that size might take refuge
if pressed. After convincing himself, therefore, by half an hour's
further trial in open sailing under the full force of the breeze, of the
fruitlessness of his effort, that experienced officer ordered the
Proserpine's helm put up, the yards squared, and he stood to the
northward, apparently shaping his course for Leghorn or the Gulf