it," said Cuffe, opening the important document as soon
has he and his brother captains were again in the cabin.
"Approved--ordered that the sentence be carried into execution on board
His Majesty's ship the Proserpine, Captain Cuffe, to-morrow, between the
hours of sunrise and sunset."

Then followed the date, and the well-known signature of "Nelson and
Bronte." All this was what Cuffe both wished and expected, though he
would have preferred a little more grace in carrying out the orders. The
reader is not to suppose from this that our captain was either vengeful
or bloody-minded; or that he really desired to inflict on Raoul any
penalty for the manner in which he had baffled his own designs and
caused his crew to suffer. So far from this, his intention was to use
the sentence to extort from the prisoner a confession of the orders he
had given to those left in the lugger, and then to use this confession
as a means of obtaining his pardon, with a transfer to a prison-ship.
Cuffe had no great veneration for privateersmen, nor was his estimate of
their morality at all unreasonable, when he inferred that one who served
with gain for his principal object would not long hesitate about
purchasing his own life by the betrayal of a secret like that he now
asked. Had Raoul belonged even to a republican navy, the English
man-of-wars-man might have hesitated about carrying out his plan; but,
with the master of a corsair, it appeared to be the most natural thing
imaginable to attempt its execution. Both Sir Frederick and Lyon viewed
the matter in the same light; and, now that everything was legally done
that was necessary to the design, the capture of the lugger was deemed
more than half accomplished.

"It is somewhat afflicting, too, Cuffe," observed Sir Frederick, in his
drawling, indolent way; "it is somewhat afflicting, too, Cuffe, to be
compelled to betray one's friends or to be hanged! In parliament, now,
we say we'll be hanged if we do, and here you say you'll be hanged if
you don't."

"Poh, poh! Dashwood; no one expects this Raoul Yvard will come to that
fate, for no one thinks he will hold out. We shall get the lugger, and
that will be the end of it. I'd give a thousand pounds to see that d--d
Few-Folly at anchor within pistol-shot of my stern at this blessed
moment. My feelings are in the matter."

"Five hundred would be a high price," observed Lyon, dryly. "I much
doubt if the shares of us three come to as much as a