re opening
Campanella now sufficiently to give you a good look up toward the head."

A pause of a minute succeeded. Then the lookout aloft shook his head in
the negative, as if unwilling to speak. Winchester glanced at Cuffe, who
turned anxiously, mounted a gun, and strained his eyes in a gaze to the
northward.

"All ready, sir," said the first lieutenant, when another minute
elapsed.

Cuffe was in the act of raising his hand, which would have been the
signal of death, when the dull, heavy report of a distant gun came
booming down from the direction of the town of Naples.

"Stand fast!" shouted Cuffe, fearful the men might get the start of-him.
"Make your mates take their calls from their mouths, sir. Two more guns,
Winchester, and I am the happiest man in Nelson's fleet!"

A second gun _did_ come, just as these words were uttered: then followed
a breathless pause of half a minute, when a third smothered but
unequivocal report succeeded.

"It must be a salute, sir," Griffin uttered, inquiringly..

"The interval is too long. Listen! I hope to _God_ we have had the
last!"

Every ear in the ship listened intently, Cuffe holding his watch in his
hand. Two entire minutes passed, and no fourth gun was heard. As second
after second went by, the expression of the captain's countenance
changed, and then he waved his hand in triumph.

"It's as it should be, gentlemen," he said. "Take the prisoner below,
Mr. Winchester. Unreeve the rope, and send that d--d grating off the
gun. Mr. Strand, pipe down."

Raoul was immediately led below. As he passed through the after-hatch,
all the officers on the quarter-deck bowed to him, and not a man was
there in the ship who did not feel the happier for the reprieve.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"He saw with his own eyes the moon was round,
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he'd journeyed fifty miles, and found
No sign that it was circular anywhere."

_Don Juan_.

Raoul Yvard was indebted to a piece of forethought in Clinch for his
life. But for the three guns fired so opportunely from the Foudroyant,
the execution could not have been stayed; and but for a prudent care on
the part of the master's-mate, the guns would never have been fired. The
explanation is this: when Cuffe was giving his subordinate instructions
how to proceed, the possibility of detention struck the latter, and he
bethought him of some expedient by which such an evil might