st keeping Ischia and Capri in view, lying-to under her jigger.
As this was low sail, and a lugger shows so little aloft, it was a
common expedient of cruisers of that rig, when they wished to escape
observation. Monsieur Pintard, Raoul's first lieutenant, had expected a
signal from his commander, at the very spot where Clinch had taken his
station; but seeing none, he had swept along the coast after dark, in
the hope of discovering his position by the burning of a blue light.
Failing of this, however, he went off the land again, in time to get an
offing before the return of day, and to save the wind. It was the
boldness of the manoeuvre that saved the lugger; Lyon going out through
the pass between Capri and Campanella, about twenty minutes before
Pintard brushed close round the rocks, under his jigger and jib only,
anxiously looking out for a signal from his captain. The Frenchmen saw
the sloop-of-war quite plainly, and by the aid of their night-glasses
ascertained her character; mistaking her, however, for another ship,
bound to Sicily or Malta--while their own vessel escaped observation,
owing to the little sail she carried, the want of hamper, and her
situation so near the land, which gave her a background of rocks. Clinch
had not seen the movements of the lugger after dark, in consequence of
his retiring to the village of St. Agata, to seek lodgings, as soon as
he perceived that his own ship had gone to sea, and left him and his
boat's crew behind. The following morning, when he made the ship to the
southward, he pushed off, and pulled toward his proper vessel,
as related.

"Where did you pass the night, Clinch?" demanded the captain, after they
had discussed the probability of the lugger's escape. "Not on the
heights, under the canopy of heaven?"

"On the heights, and under the great canopy that has covered us both so
often, Captain Cuffe; but with a good Neapolitan mud-roof between it and
my head. As soon as it was dark, and I saw that the ship was off, I
found a village, named St. Agata, that stands on the heights, just abeam
of those rocks they call the Sirens, and there we were well berthed
until morning."

"You are lucky in bringing back all the boat's crew, Clinch. You know
it's low water with us as to men, just now; and our fellows are not all
to be trusted ashore, in a country that is full of stone walls, good
wine, and pretty girls."

"I always take a set of regular steady ones with me, Captain Cuffe