e out her jigger, even. You know,
sir, we shot away her jigger-mast in the chase off Elba, and she got a
new one, that steves for'rard uncommonly. I noticed _that_ when we fell
in with her in the Canal of Piombino; and seeing it again, could not but
know it. But there's no mistaking the saucy Folly, for them that has
once seen her; and I am certain we made her out, about four leagues to
the southward of the cape, at the time I first signalled."

"Four leagues!--I had though she must be at least eight or ten, and kept
off that distance, to get her in the net. Why did you not let us know
her distance?"

"Had no signals for that, Captain Cuffe."

"Well, then, why not send a boat to tell us the fact?"

"Had no orders, sir. Was told by Mr. Winchester just to signal the
lugger and her bearings; and this, you must own, Captain Cuffe, we did
plain enough. Besides, sir--"

"Well; besides _what_?" demanded the captain, observing that the
master's-mate hesitated.

"Why, sir, how was I to know that any one in the ship would think a
lugger _could_ be seen eight or ten leagues? That's a long bit of water,
sir; and it would take a heavy ship's spars to rise high enough for
such a sight."

"The land you were on, Clinch, was much loftier than any vessel's
spars."

"Quite true, sir; but not lofty enough for that, Captain Cuffe. That I
saw the Folly, I'm as certain as I as being in this cabin."

"What has become of her, then? You perceive she is not in the bay now."

"I suppose, Captain Cuffe, that she stood in until near enough for her
purpose, and that she must have hauled off the land after the night set
in. There was plenty of room for her to pass out to sea again, between
the two frigates, and not be seen in the dark."

This conjecture was so plausible as to satisfy Cuffe; yet it was not the
fact. Clinch had made le Feu-Follet, from his elevated post, to the
southward, as his signal had said; and he was right in all his
statements about her, until darkness concealed her movements. Instead of
passing out of the bay, as he imagined, however, she had hauled up
within a quarter of a league of Campanella, doubled that point, brushed
along the coast to the northward of it, fairly within the Bay of Naples,
and pushed out to sea between Capri and Ischia, going directly athwart
the anchorage the men-of-war had so recently quitted, in order to do so.

When Raoul quitted his vessel, he order her to stand directly off the
land, ju