; and I will get under way and stand
off to sea, keeping well to the northward and eastward, as if I were
running for the Straits of Bonifacio, for instance, until it gets to be
dark, when I will haul up south for a couple of hours or so; then come
up as high as southeast until we are to the southward of the Gulf of
Salerno. This will be before daylight, if the wind stand. At daylight,
then, you may look out for me off Piane, say two leagues, and to
seaward, I hope, of the lugger. You shall follow, Sir Frederick, just as
the sun sets, and keep in my wake, as near as possible, heaving to,
however, at midnight. This will bring you fairly abreast of the gulf and
about midway between the two capes, a little west of south from
Campanella. Lyon, you can lie here until the night has fairly set in,
when you can pass between Capri and the cape and run down south two
hours and heave to. This will place you in a position to watch the
passage to and from the gulf under the northern shore."

"And this arrangement completed to your satisfaction, Captain Cuffe,"
asked Lyon, deliberately helping himself to an enormous pinch of snuff,
"what will be your pleasure in the posterior evolutions?"

"Each ship must keep her station until the day has fairly dawned. Should
it turn out as I trust it may, that we've got le Few-Folly in-shore of
us, all we'll have to do will be to close in upon her and drive her up
higher and higher into the Bay. She will naturally run into shallow
water; when we must anchor off, man the boats, send them north and south
of her, and let them board her under cover of our fire. If we find the
lugger embayed, we'll have her as sure as fate."

"Very prettily conceived, Captain Cuffe; and in a way to be handsomely
executed. But if we should happen to find the heathen outside of us?"

"Then make sail in chase to seaward, each ship acting for the best.
Come, gentlemen, I do not wish to be inhospitable, but the Proserpine
must be off. She has a long road before her; and the winds of this
season of the year can barely be counted on for an hour at a time."

Cuffe being in such a hurry, his guests departed without further
ceremony. As for Sir Frederick, the first thing he did was to order
dinner an hour earlier than he had intended, and then to invite his
surgeon and marine-officer, two capital pairs of knives and forks, to
come and share it with him, after which he sat down to play somewhat
villanously on a flute. Two hou