o step on the
forecastle and look ahead, monsieur?--the light is beginning to be
of use."

The young man yawned, stretched his arms, and walked forward; the first
to indulge himself, the first, also, to relieve the uneasiness of an old
shipmate, whose experience he respected. Still his step was not as quick
as common, and it was near a minute ere he reached the bows, or before
he gained the knight-heads. But his form was no sooner visible there,
than he waved his arms frantically, and shouted in a voice that reached
the recesses of the vessel:

"Hard up--hard up with the helm, Antoine--ease off the sheets, _mes
enfans!_"

Le Feu-Follet rose on a heavy ground-swell at that moment; in the next
she settled down with a shock resembling that which we experience when
we leap and alight sooner than was expected. There she lay cradled in a
bed of rocks as immovable as one of the stones around her;--stones that
had mocked the billows of the Mediterranean, within the known annals of
man, more than three thousand years. In a word, the lugger had struck on
one of those celebrated islets under the heights of St. Agata, known as
the Islands of the Sirens, and which are believed to have been
commemorated by the oldest of all the living profane writers, Homer
himself. The blow was hardly given, before Raoul appeared on deck. The
vessel gave up all that had life in her, and she was at once a scene of
alarm, activity, and exertion.

It is at such a moment as this that the most useful qualities of a naval
captain render themselves apparent. Of all around him, Raoul was the
calmest, the most collected, and the best qualified to issue the orders
that had become necessary. He made no exclamations--uttered not a word
of reproach--cast not even a glance of disapprobation on any near him.
The mischief was done; the one thing needful was to repair it, if
possible, leaving to the future the cares of discipline and the
distribution of rewards and punishments.

"She is as fast anchored as a cathedral, _mon lieutenant_," he quietly
observed to the very officer through whose remissness the accident had
occurred; "I see no use in these sails. Take them in at once; they may
set her further on the rocks, should she happen to lift."

The young man obeyed, every nerve in his body agitated by the sense of
delinquency. Then he walked aft, cast one look around him at the
desperate condition of the lugger, and, with the impetuosity of
character that b