of
Genoa. When the frigate made this change in her course, the lugger,
which had tacked some time previously, was just becoming shut in by the
western end of Elba, and she was soon lost to view entirely, with every
prospect of her weathering the island altogether, without being obliged
to go about again.

It was no more than natural that such a chase should occasion some
animation in a place as retired and ordinarily as dull as Porto Ferrajo.
Several of the young idlers of the garrison obtained horses and galloped
up among the hills to watch the result; the mountains being pretty well
intersected by bridle-paths, though totally without regular roads. They
who remained in the town, as a matter of course, were not disposed to
let so favorable a subject for discourse die away immediately, for want
of a disposition to gossip on it. Little else was talked of that day
than the menaced attack of the republican frigate, and the escape of the
lugger. Some, indeed, still doubted, for every question has its two
sides, and there was just enough of dissent to render the discussions
lively and the arguments ingenious. Among the disputants, Vito Viti
acted a prominent part. Having committed himself so openly by his
"vivas" and his public remarks in the port, he felt it due to his own
character to justify all he had said, and Raoul Yvard could not have
desired a warmer advocate than he had in the podesta. The worthy
magistrate exaggerated the vice-governatore's knowledge of English, by
way of leaving no deficiency in the necessary proofs of the lugger's
national character. Nay, he even went so far as to affirm that he had
comprehended a portion of the documents exhibited by the "Signor Smees"
himself; and as to "ze Ving-y-Ving," any one acquainted in the least
with the geography of the British Channel would understand that she was
precisely the sort of craft that the semi-Gallic inhabitants of Guernsey
and Jersey would be apt to send forth to cruise against the out-and-out
Gallic inhabitants of the adjacent main.

During all these discussions, there was one heart in Porto Ferrajo that
was swelling with the conflicting emotions of gratitude,
disappointment, joy, and fear, though the tongue of its owner was
silent. Of all of her sex in the place, Ghita alone had nothing to
conjecture, no speculation to advance, no opinion to maintain, nor any
wish to express. Still she listened eagerly, and it was not the least of
her causes of satisf