The Wing and Wing by J. Fenimore Cooper

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THE

WING-AND-WING

OR

LE FEU-FOLLET

_A TALE_

BY

J. FENIMORE COOPER

"Know,
Without star or angel for their guide,
Who worship God shall find him."

PREFACE.

It is difficult to say of which there is most in the world, a blind
belief in religious dogmas, or a presumptuous and ignorant cavilling on
revelation. The impression has gone abroad, that France was an example
of the last, during the height of her great revolutionary mania; a
charge that was scarcely true, as respects the nation, however just it
might be in connection with her bolder and more unquiet spirits. Most of
the excesses of France, during that momentous period, were to be
attributed to the agency of a few, the bulk of the nation having little
to do with any part of them, beyond yielding their physical and
pecuniary aid to an audacious and mystifying political combination. One
of the baneful results, however, of these great errors of the times, was
the letting loose of the audacious from all the venerable and healthful
restraints of the church, to set them afloat on the sea of speculation
and conceit. There is something so gratifying to human vanity in
fancying ourselves superior to most around us, that we believe few young
men attain their majority without imbibing more or less of the taint of
unbelief, and passing through the mists of a vapid moral atmosphere,
before they come to the clear, manly, and yet humble perceptions that
teach most of us, in the end, our own insignificance, the great
benevolence as well as wisdom of the scheme of redemption, and the
philosophy of the Christian religion, as well as its divinity.

Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block of the young is a disposition not
to yield to their belief unless it conforms to their own crude notions
of propriety and reason. If the powers of man were equal to analyzing
the nature of the Deity, to comprehending His being, and power, and
motives, there would be some little show of sense in thus setting up the
pretence of satisfying our judgments in all things, before we yield our
credence to a religious system. But the first step we take brings with
it the instructive lesson of our incapacity, and teaches the wholesome
lesson of humility. From arrogantly claiming a right to worship a deity
we comprehend, we soon come to feel that the impenetrable veil that is
cast around the Godhead is an indispensable condition of our faith,
reverence, and submission, A being that can be comprehended is not a
being to be worshipped.

In this book, there is an attempt to set these conflicting tendencies in
a full but amicable contrast to each other, We believe there is nothing
in the design opposed to probability; and it seems to us, that the
amiable tenderness of a confiding but just-viewing female heart might,
under the circumstances, be expected to manifest the mingled weakness
and strength that it has here been our aim to portray.

We acknowledge a strong paternal feeling in behalf of this book, placing
it very high in the estimate of its merits, as compared with other books
from the same pen: a species of commendation that need wound no man.
Perhaps some knowledge of Italian character is necessary to enjoy the
_vice-governatore_ (veechy-gov-er-na-_to_-re), and the _podesta_; but we
confess they have given us, in reading over these pages for the first
time since they were written, quite as much amusement as if they were
altogether from an unknown hand.

As for the Mediterranean, that unrivalled sea, its pictures always
afford us delight. The hue of the water; the delicious and voluptuous
calm; the breathings of the storm from the Alps and Apennines; the noble
mountain-sides basking in the light of the region or shrouded in mists
that increase their grandeur; the picturesque craft; the islands, bays,
rocks, volcanoes, and the thousand objects of art, contribute to render
it the centre of all that is delightful and soothing to both the mind
and the senses.

The reader will recollect the painful history of Caraccioli. We have
taken some liberties with his private history, admitting frankly that we
have no other authority for them than that which we share in common with
all writers of romance. The grand-daughter we have given the unfortunate
admiral is so much in accordance with Italian practices that no wrong is
done to the _morale_ of Naples, whatever may be the extent of the
liberty taken with the individual.

Nelson seems to have lived and died under the influence of the
unprincipled woman who then governed him with the arts of a siren. His
nature was noble, and his moral impressions, even, were not bad; but his
simple and confiding nature was not equal to contending with one as
practised in profligacy as the woman into whose arms he was thrown, at a
most evil moment for his reputation.

There is nothing more repugnant to the general sense of rights, than the
prostitution of public justice to the purposes of private vengeance.
Such would seem to have been the reason of the very general odium
attached to the execution of Admiral Prince Caraccioli, who was the
victim of circumstances, rather than the promoter of treason. The whole
transaction makes a melancholy episode in the history of modern Europe.
We have made such use of it as is permitted to fiction, neither
neglecting the leading and known facts of the event, nor adhering to the
minuter circumstances more closely than the connection of our
tale demanded.

WING-AND-WING.

CHAPTER I.

"Filled with the face of heaven, which from afar
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse:
And now they change: a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new color as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is grey."

_Childe Harold._

The charms of the Tyrrhenian Sea have been sung since the days of Homer.
That the Mediterranean generally, and its beautiful boundaries of Alps
and Apennines, with its deeply indented and irregular shores, forms the
most delightful region of the known earth, in all that relates to
climate, productions, and physical formation, will be readily enough
conceded by the traveller. The countries that border on this midland
water, with their promontories buttressing a mimic ocean--their
mountain-sides teeming with the picturesque of human life--their heights
crowned with watch-towers--their rocky shelves consecrated by
hermitages, and their unrivalled sheet dotted with sails, rigged, as it
might be, expressly to produce effect in a picture, form a sort of world
apart, that is replete with charms which not only fascinate the
beholder, but which linger in the memories of the absent like visions of
a glorious past.

Our present business is with this fragment of a creation that is so
eminently beautiful, even in its worst aspects, but which is so often
marred by the passions of man, in its best. While all admit how much
nature has done for the Mediterranean, none will deny that, until quite
recently, it has been the scene of more ruthless violence, and of deeper
personal wrongs, perhaps, than any other portion of the globe. With
different races, more widely separated by destinies than even by origin,
habits, and religion, occupying its northern and southern shores, the
outwork, as it might be, of Christianity and Mohammedanism, and of an
antiquity that defies history, the bosom of this blue expanse has
mirrored more violence, has witnessed more scenes of slaughter, and
heard more shouts of victory, between the days of Agamemnon and Nelson,
than all the rest of the dominions of Neptune together. Nature and the
passions have united to render it like the human countenance, which
conceals by its smiles and godlike expression the furnace that so often
glows within the heart, and the volcano that consumes our happiness. For
centuries, the Turk and the Moor rendered it unsafe for the European to
navigate these smiling coasts; and when the barbarian's power
temporarily ceased, it was merely to give place to the struggles of
those who drove him from the arena.

The circumstances which rendered the period that occurred between the
years 1790 and 1815 the most eventful of modern times are familiar to
all; though the incidents which chequered that memorable quarter of a
century have already passed into history. All the elements of strife
that then agitated the world appear now to have subsided as completely
as if they owed their existence to a remote age; and living men recall
the events of their youth as they regard the recorded incidents of other
centuries. Then, each month brought its defeat or its victory; its
account of a government overturned, or of a province conquered. The
world was agitated like men in a tumult. On that epoch the timid look
back with wonder; the young with doubt; and the restless with envy.

The years 1798 and 1799 were two of the most memorable of this
ever-memorable period; and to that stirring and teeming season we must
carry the mind of the reader in order to place it in the midst of the
scenes it is our object to portray.

Toward the close of a fine day in the month of August, a light,
fairy-like craft was fanning her way before a gentle westerly air into
what is called the Canal of Piombino, steering easterly. The rigs of the
Mediterranean are proverbial for their picturesque beauty and
quaintness, embracing the xebeque, the felucca, the polacre, and the
bombarda, or ketch; all unknown, or nearly so, to our own seas; and
occasionally the lugger. The latter, a species of craft, however, much
less common in the waters of Italy than in the Bay of Biscay and the
British Channel, was the construction of the vessel in question; a
circumstance that the mariners who eyed her from the shores of Elba
deemed indicative of mischief. A three-masted lugger, that spread a wide
breadth of canvas, with a low, dark hull, relieved by a single and
almost imperceptible line of red beneath her channels, and a waist so
deep that nothing was visible above it but the hat of some mariner
taller than common, was considered a suspicious vessel; and not even a
fisherman would have ventured out within reach of a shot, so long as her
character was unknown. Privateers, or corsairs, as it was the fashion to
term them (and the name, with even its English signification, was often
merited by their acts), not unfrequently glided down that coast; and it
was sometimes dangerous for those who belonged to friendly nations to
meet them, in moments when the plunder that a relic of barbarism still
legalizes had failed.

The lugger was actually of about one hundred and eighty tons
admeasurement, but her dark paint and low hull gave her an appearance of
being much smaller than she really was; still, the spread of her canvas,
as she came down before the wind, wing-and-wing, as seamen term it, or
with a sail fanning like the heavy pinions of a sea-fowl, on each side,
betrayed her pursuits; and, as has been intimated, the mariners on the
shore who watched her movements shook their heads in distrust as they
communed among themselves, in very indifferent Italian, concerning her
destination and object. This observation, with its accompanying
discourse, occurred on the rocky bluff above the town of Porto Ferrajo,
in the Island of Elba, a spot that has since become so renowned as the
capital of the mimic dominion of Napoleon. Indeed, the very dwelling
which was subsequently used by the fallen emperor as a palace stood
within a hundred yards of the speakers, looking out toward the entrance
of the canal, and the mountains of Tuscany; or rather of the little
principality of Piombino, the system of merging the smaller in the
larger states of Europe not having yet been brought into extensive
operation. This house, a building of the size of a better sort of
country residence of our own, was then, as now, occupied by the
Florentine governor of the Tuscan portion of the island. It stands on
the extremity of a low rocky promontory that forms the western ramparts
of the deep, extensive bay, on the side of which, ensconced behind a
very convenient curvature of the rocks, which here incline westward in
the form of a hook, lies the small port, completely concealed from the
sea, as if in dread of visits like those which might be expected from
craft resembling the suspicious stranger. This little port, not as large
in itself as a modern dock in places like London or Liverpool, was
sufficiently protected against any probable dangers, by suitable
batteries; and as for the elements, a vessel laid upon a shelf in a
closet would be scarcely more secure. In this domestic little basin,
which, with the exception of a narrow entrance, was completely
surrounded by buildings, lay a few feluccas, that traded between the
island and the adjacent main, and a solitary Austrian ship, which had
come from the head of the Adriatic in quest of iron.

At the moment of which we are writing, however, but a dozen living
beings were visible in or about all these craft. The intelligence that
a strange lugger, resembling the one described, was in the offing, and
had drawn nearly all the mariners ashore; and most of the habitues of
the port had followed them up the broad steps of the crooked streets
which led to the heights behind the town; or to the rocky elevation that
overlooks the sea from northeast to west. The approach of the lugger
produced some such effect on the mariners of this unsophisticated and
little frequented port, as that of the hawk is known to excite among the
timid tenants of the barn-yard. The rig of the stranger had been noted
two hours before by one or two old coasters, who habitually passed their
idle moments on the heights, examining the signs of the weather, and
indulging in gossip; and their conjectures had drawn to the Porto
Ferrajo mall some twenty men, who fancied themselves, or who actually
were, _cognoscenti_ in matters of the sea. When, however, the low, long,
dark hull, which upheld such wide sheets of canvas, became fairly
visible, the omens thickened, rumors spread, and hundreds collected on
the spot, which, in Manhattanese parlance, would probably have been
called a battery. Nor would the name have been altogether inappropriate,
as a small battery was established there, and that, too, in a position
which would easily throw a shot two-thirds of a league into the offing;
or about the distance that the stranger was now from the shore.

Tommaso Tonti was the oldest mariner of Elba, and luckily, being a
sober, and usually a discreet man, he was the oracle of the island in
most things that related to the sea. As each citizen, wine-dealer,
grocer, innkeeper, or worker in iron, came up on the height, he
incontinently inquired for Tonti, or 'Maso, as he was generally called;
and getting the bearings and distance of the gray-headed old seaman, he
invariably made his way to his side, until a group of some two hundred
men, women, and children had clustered near the person of the _pilota_,
as the faithful gather about a favorite expounder of the law, in moments
of religious excitement. It was worthy of remark, too, with how much
consideration this little crowd of gentle Italians treated their aged
seaman, on this occasion; none bawling out their questions, and all
using the greatest care not to get in front of his person, lest they
might intercept his means of observation. Five or six old sailors, like
himself, were close at his side; these, it is true, did not hesitate to
speak as became their experience. But Tonti had obtained no small part
of his reputation by exercising great moderation in delivering his
oracles, and perhaps by seeming to know more than he actually revealed.
He was reserved, therefore; and while his brethren of the sea ventured
on sundry conflicting opinions concerning the character of the stranger,
and a hundred idle conjectures had flown from mouth to mouth, among the
landsmen and females, not a syllable that could commit the old man
escaped his lips. He let the others talk at will; as for himself, it
suited his habits, and possibly his doubts, to maintain a grave and
portentous silence.

We have spoken of females; as a matter of course, an event like this, in
a town of some three or four thousand souls, would be likely to draw a
due proportion of the gentler sex to the heights. Most of them contrived
to get as near as possible to the aged seaman, in order to obtain the
first intelligence, that it might be the sooner circulated; but it would
seem that among the younger of these there was also a sort of oracle of
their own, about whose person gathered a dozen of the prettiest girls;
either anxious to hear what Ghita might have to say in the premises, or,
perhaps, influenced by the pride and modesty of their sex and condition,
which taught them to maintain a little more reserve than was necessary
to the less refined portion of their companions. In speaking of
condition, however, the words must be understood with an exceedingly
limited meaning. Porto Ferrajo had but two classes of society, the
tradespeople and the laborers; although there were, perhaps, a dozen
exceptions in the persons of a few humble functionaries of the
government, an avvocato, a medico, and a few priests. The governor of
the island was a Tuscan of rank, but he seldom honored the place with
his presence; and his deputy was a professional man, a native of the
town, whose original position was too well known to allow him to give
himself airs on the spot where he was born. Ghita's companions, then,
were daughters of shopkeepers, and persons of that class who, having
been taught to read, and occasionally going to Leghorn, besides being
admitted by the deputy to the presence of his housekeeper, had got to
regard themselves as a little elevated above the more vulgar curiosity
of the less cultivated girls of the port. Ghita herself, however, owed
her ascendency to her qualities, rather than to the adventitious
advantage of being a grocer's or an innkeeper's daughter, her origin
being unknown to most of those around her, as indeed was her family
name. She had been landed six weeks before, and left by one who passed
for her father, at the inn of Christoforo Dovi, as a boarder, and had
acquired all her influence, as so many reach notoriety in our own simple
society, by the distinction of having travelled; aided, somewhat, by her
strong sense, great decision of character, perfect modesty and propriety
of deportment, with a form which was singularly graceful and feminine,
and a face that, while it could scarcely be called beautiful, was in the
highest degree winning and attractive. No one thought of asking her
family name; and she never appeared to deem it necessary to mention it.
Ghita was sufficient; it was familiar to every one; and, although there
were two or three others of the same appellation in Porto Ferrajo, this,
by common consent, got to be _the_ Ghita, within a week after she
had landed.

Ghita, it was known, had travelled, for she had publicly reached Elba in
a felucca, coming, as was said, from the Neapolitan states. If this were
true, she was probably the only person of her sex in the town who had
ever seen Vesuvius, or planted her eyes on the wonders of a part of
Italy that has a reputation second only to that of Rome. Of course, if
any girl in Porto Ferrajo could imagine the character of the stranger it
must be Ghita; and it was on this supposition that she had unwittingly,
and, if the truth must be owned, unwillingly, collected around her a
_clientelle_ of at least a dozen girls of her own age, and apparently of
her own class. The latter, however, felt no necessity for the reserve
maintained by the curious who pressed near 'Maso; for, while they
respected their guest and friend, and would rather listen to her
surmises than to those of any other person, they had such a prompting
desire to hear their own voices that not a minute escaped without a
question, or a conjecture, both volubly and quite audibly expressed. The
interjections, too, were somewhat numerous, as the guesses were crude
and absurd. One said it was a vessel with despatches from Livorno,
possibly with "His Eccellenza" on board; but she was reminded that
Leghorn lay to the north, and not to the west. Another thought it was a
cargo of priests, going from Corsica to Rome; but she was told that
priests were not in sufficient favor just then in France, to get a
vessel so obviously superior to the ordinary craft of the Mediterranean,
to carry them about. While a third, more imaginative than either,
ventured to doubt whether it was a vessel at all; deceptive appearances
of this sort not being of rare occurrence, and usually taking the aspect
of something out of the ordinary way.

"_Si_," said Annina, "but that would be a miracle, Maria; and why should
we have a miracle, now that Lent and most of the holidays are past? _I_
believe it is a real vessel."

The others laughed, and, after a good deal of eager chattering on the
subject, it was quite generally admitted that the stranger was a _bona
fide_ craft, of some species or another, though all agreed she was not a
felucca, a bombarda, or a sparanara. All this time Ghita was thoughtful
and silent; quite as much so, indeed, as Tommaso himself, though from a
very different motive. Nothwithstanding all the gossip, and the many
ludicrous opinions of her companions, her eyes scarcely turned an
instant from the lugger, on which they seemed to be riveted by a sort of
fascination. Had there been one there sufficiently unoccupied to observe
this interesting girl, he might have been struck with the varying
expression of a countenance that was teeming with sensibility, and which
too often reflected the passing emotions of its mistress's mind. Now an
expression of anxiety, and even of alarm, would have been detected by
such an observer, if acute enough to separate these emotions, in the
liveliness of sentiment, from the more vulgar feelings of her
companions; and now, something like gleamings of delight and happiness
flashed across her eloquent countenance. The color came and went often;
and there was an instant, during which the lugger varied her course,
hauling to the wind, and then falling off again, like a dolphin at its
sports, when the radiance of the pleasure that glowed about her soft
blue eyes rendered the girl perfectly beautiful. But none of these
passing expressions were noticed by the garrulous group around the
stranger female, who was left very much to the indulgence of the
impulses that gave them birth, unquestioned, and altogether unsuspected.

Although the cluster of girls had, with feminine sensitiveness, gathered
a little apart from the general crowd, there were but a few yards
between the spot where it stood and that occupied by 'Maso; so that,
when the latter spoke, an attentive listener among the former might hear
his words. This was an office that Tonti did not choose to undertake,
however, until he was questioned by the podesta, Vito Viti, who now
appeared on the hill in person, puffing like a whale that rises to
breathe, from the vigor of his ascent.

"What dost thou make of her, good 'Maso?" demanded the magistrate, after
he had examined the stranger himself some time in silence, feeling
authorized, in virtue of his office, to question whom he pleased.

"Signore, it is a lugger," was the brief, and certainly the accurate
reply.

"Aye, a lugger; we all understand that, neighbor Tonti; but what sort of
a lugger? There are felucca-luggers, and polacre-luggers, and
bombarda-luggers, and all sorts of luggers; which sort of lugger
is this?"

"Signor Podesta, this is not the language of the port. We call a
felucca, a felucca; a bombarda, a bombarda; a polacre, a polacre; and a
lugger, a lugger. This is therefore a lugger."

'Maso spoke authoritatively, for he felt that he was now not out of his
depth, and it was grateful to him to let the public know how much better
he understood all these matters than a magistrate. On the other hand,
the podesta was nettled, and disappointed into the bargain, for he
really imagined he was drawing nice distinctions, much as it was his
wont to do in legal proceedings; and it was his ambition to be thought
to know something of everything.

"Well, Tonti," answered Signor Viti, in a protecting manner, and with an
affable smile, "as this is not an affair that is likely to go to the
higher courts at Florence, your explanations may be taken as sufficient,
and I have no wish to disturb them--a lugger is a lugger."

"Si, Signore; that is just what we say in the port. A lugger is a
lugger."

"And yonder strange craft, you maintain, and at need are ready to swear,
is a lugger?"

Now 'Maso seeing no necessity for any oath in the affair, and being
always somewhat conscientious in such matters, whenever the custom-house
officers did not hold the book, was a little startled at this
suggestion, and he took another and a long look at the stranger before
he answered.

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