for a
second and vanished as the flame sank and a cloud of smoke and sparks
rolled up in its place and drifted heavily to leeward.

With a light touch on the Princess's arm I bade her follow me, and
we raced together down the slope. At the foot of it we plunged into
a grove of olives and through it, as through a screen, into the
street of a little _marina_--two dozen fisher-huts, huddled close
above the foreshore, and tenantless; for their inhabitants were
gathered all on the beach and staring at the blaze.

I have said that the folk at Cape Corso are a race apart: and surely
there never was a stranger crowd than that in which, two minutes
later, we found ourselves mingling unchallenged. They accepted us,
may be, as a minor miracle of the night. They gazed at us curiously
there in the light of the conflagration, and from us away to the
burning island, and talked together in whispers, in a patois of which
I caught but one word in three. They asked us no questions.
Their voices filled the beach with a kind of subdued murmuring, all
alike gentle and patiently explanatory.

"It is the island of Giraglia," said one to me. "Yes, yes; this will
be the work of the patriots--a brave feat too, there's no denying."

I pointed to a line of fishing-boats moored in the shoal water a
short furlong off the shore.

"If you own one," said I, "give me leave to hire her from you, and
name your price."

"_Perche, perche?_"

"I wish to sail her to the island."

"_O galant'uomo_, but why should any one desire to sail to the island
to-night of all nights, seeing that to-night they have set it on
fire?"

I stared at his simplicity. "You are not patriots, it seems, at this
end of the Cape?"

He shook his head gravely. "The Genoese on the island are our
customers, and buy our fish. Why should men quarrel?"

"If it come to commerce, then, will you sell me your boat? The price
of her should be worth many a day's barter of fish."

He shook his head again, but called his neighbours to him, men and
women, and they began to discuss my offer, all muttering together,
their voices mingling confusedly as in a dream.

By-and-by the man turned to me. "The price is thirty-five livres,
signore, on deposit, for which you may choose any boat you will.
We are peaceable folk and care not to meddle; but the half shall be
refunded if you bring her back safe and sound."

"Fetch me a shore-boat, then," said I, while they counted my money,