The Wing and Wing by J. Fenimore Cooper

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"There she goes, into the very breakers!" exclaimed Cuffe, as they
watched le Feu-Follet in her attempt to pass the promontory; "Monsieur
Yvard must be determined to cast away his craft rather than be taken. It
will be touch and go with him."

"I think not, Captain Cuffe," answered Griffin; "the coast is bold
hereabouts, and even the Proserpine would find sufficient water there,
where the lugger now is, I hope we shall not be obliged to tack, sir."

"Aye, this is very well for an irresponsible--but, when it got to a
court, and punishment, I fear that all the last would fall on my
shoulders, should his Majesty's ship happen to lay her bones along-shore
here. No, no, Griffin; we must go a clear cable's length to windward of
_that_, or I go about, though Raoul Yvard were never taken."

"There, he fetches up, by George!" cried Yelverton, the youngest
lieutenant; and for a moment it was in truth believed in the frigate
that le Feu-Follet, as a breaker actually curled directly under her lee,
was aground. But this notion lasted a moment only, the little lugger
continuing her course as swiftly as before; and a minute or two later
keeping a little away to ease her spars, having been jammed up as close
as possible previously, in order to weather the extreme end of what was
thought to be the dangerous point. The frigate was fully two miles
astern; and, instead of losing anything of her vantage-ground, she was
kept so near the wind as to be occasionally touching. This was the more
safe, inasmuch as the sea was perfectly smooth, and the vessel made no
lee-way. Still the frigate looked, as it is termed, barely up to the
point it was deemed indispensable to weather; and as ships rarely "do"
better than they "look," it became a question of serious doubt on board
the Proserpine, as she came up with the headland, whether she
could clear it.

"I am afraid, Captain Cuffe, we shall never clear it with a good-enough
berth, sir," observed the fidgeting Griffin; "it seems to me the ship
sets unaccountably to leeward to-day!"

"She never behaved better, Griffin. I am really in hopes there is a
slight current off-shore here; if anything, we actually open the
highlands of Corsica by this promontory. You see that the wreck of la
Divina Providenza is sweeping round the bay and is coming out to
windward again."

"_That_ may serve us, indeed! All ready in the chains, sir!--shall we
make a cast of the lead?"

Cuffe assented, and the lead was hove. At this moment the ship was going
eight knots, and the man reported no bottom, with fifteen fathoms of
line out. This was well, and two or three subsequent casts confirmed it.
Orders were now given to drag every bowline, swig-off on every brace,
and flatten-in all the sheets. Even the halyards were touched in order
that the sails might stand like boards. The trying moment was near; five
minutes must decide the matter.

"Let her shake a little, Mr. Yelverton, and eat into the wind," said
Cuffe, addressing the officer of the watch; "we must do all we can here;
for when abreast of the breakers everything must be a rap-full to keep
the ship under quick command. There--meet her with the helm, and give
her a good full."

This experiment was repeated twice, and each time the frigate gained her
length to windward, though she necessarily lost more than three times
that distance in her velocity. At length the trial came, and a profound
silence, one in which nervousness and anxiety were blended with hope,
reigned in the vessel. The eyes of all turned from the sails to the
breakers; from the breakers to the sails; and from both to the wake
of the ship.

At such moments the voice of the lead's-man prevails over all other
sounds. His warning cry is listened to with breathless attention when
the songs of a siren would be unheard. Cast after cast was made as the
ship drove on, and the answer to Cuffe's questions was uniformly, "No
bottom, sir, with fifteen fathoms out"; but just at this instant arose
the regular song from the weather main-chains of "by the mark seven!"
This came so suddenly on the captain's ear that he sprang upon the
taffrail, where he could command a full view of all he wanted to see,
and then he called out in a stentorian voice:

"Heave again, sir!--be brisk, my lad!--be brisk!"

"Be-e-e-ther-r-r-dee-e-e-eep six!" followed almost as soon as the
Captain's voice had ceased.

"Ready-about," shouted Cuffe. "See all clear, gentlemen. Move lively,
men; more lively."

"And-a-a-eh half-ef-four--"

"Stand by!--What the devil are you at, sir, on that forecastle?--Are
you ready, forward?"

"All ready, sir--"

"Down with your helm--hard down at once--"

"Be-e-e-ther-r-r-dee-e-e-p nine--"

"Meet her!--up with your helm. Haul down your sheets forward--brail the
spanker--let go all the bowlines aft. So--well, there, well. She flew
round like a top; but, by Jove, we've caught her, gentlemen. Drag your
bowlines again. What's the news from the chains?"

"No bottom, sir, with fifteen fathoms out--and as good a cast, too, sir,
as we've had to-day."

"So--you're rap full--don't fall off--very well dyce" (_Anglice_,
thus)--"keep her as you are. Well, by the Lord, Griffin, that _was_ a
shave; half-four was getting to be squally in a quarter of the world
where a rock makes nothing of pouting its lips fifteen or twenty feet at
a time at a mariner. We are past it all, however, and here is the land,
trending away to the southward like a man in a consumption, fairly
under our lee. A dozen Raoul Yvards wouldn't lead me into such a d--d
scrape again!"

"The danger that is over is no longer a danger at all, sir," answered
Griffin, laughing. "Don't you think, Captain Cuffe, we might ease her
about half a point? that would be just her play; and the lugger keeps
off a little, I rather suspect, to ease her mainmast. I'm certain I saw
chips fly from it when we dosed her with those two-and-twenty pills."

"Perhaps you're right, Griffin. Ease her with the helm a little, Mr.
Yelverton. If Master Yvard stands on his present course an hour longer,
Biguglia would be too far to windward for him; and as for Bastia, that
has been out of the question from the first. There is a river called
Golo, into which he might run; and that, I rather think, is his aim.
Four hours, however, will let us into his secret."

And four intensely interesting hours were those which succeeded. The
wind was a cap-full; a good, fresh, westerly breeze, which seemed to
have started out of the oven-like heat of a week of intensely hot
weather that had preceded it, and to have collected the force of two or
three zephyrs into one. It was not a gale at all, nor did it induce
either party to think of reefing; no trifle would have done that, under
the circumstances; but it caused the Proserpine to furl her fore and
mizzentopgallant-sails, and put Raoul in better humor with the loss of
his jigger. When fairly round the headland, and at a moment when he
fancied the frigate would be compelled to tack, the latter had seized an
opportunity to get in his foresail, to unbend it, and to bend and set a
new one; an operation that took just four minutes by the watch. He would
have tried the same experiment with the other lug, but the mast was
scarce worth the risk, and he thought the holes might act as reefs, and
thus diminish the strain. In these four hours, owing to the disadvantage
under which le Feu-Follet labored, there was not a difference of half a
knot in the distance run by the two vessels, though each passed over
more than thirty miles of water. During this time they had been drawing
rapidly nearer to the coast of Corsica, the mountains of which, ragged
and crowned with nearly eternal snows, had been glittering in the
afternoon's sun before them, though they lay many a long league inland.
But the formation of the coast itself had now become plain, and Raoul,
an hour before the sun disappeared, noted his landmarks, by which to
make for the river he intended to enter. The eastern coast of Corsica is
as deficient in bays and harbors as its western is affluent with them;
and this Golo, for which the lugger was shaping her course, would never
have been thought of as a place of shelter under ordinary circumstances.
But Raoul had once anchored in its mouth, and he deemed it the very spot
in which to elude his enemy. It had shoals off its embouchure; and
these, he rightly enough fancied, would induce Captain Cuffe to be wary.

As the evening approached the wind began to decrease in force, and then
the people of the lugger lost all their apprehensions. The spars had all
stood, and Raoul no longer hesitated about trusting his wounded mainmast
with a new yard and sail. Both were got up, and the repairs were
immediately commenced. The superiority of the lugger in sailing was now
so great as to put it out of all question that she was not to be
overtaken in the chase; and Raoul at one time actually thought of
turning up along the land and going into Bastia, where he might even
provide himself with a new mainmast at need. But this idea, on
reflection, he abandoned as too hazardous; and he continued on in the
direction of the mouth of the Golo.

Throughout the day the Proserpine had shown no colors, except for the
short period when her boats were engaged, and while she herself was
firing at the lugger. The same was the fact with le Feu-Follet, though
Raoul had run up the tri-color as he opened on the felucca, and he kept
it flying as long as there was any appearance of hostilities. As the two
vessels drew in near to the land several coasters were seen beating up
against the westerly wind, or running down before it, all of which,
however, seemed so much to distrust the appearance of the lugger as to
avoid her as far as was possible. This was a matter of indifference to
our hero, who knew that they were all probably countrymen; or, at least,
smugglers, who would scarcely reward him for the trouble, had he time to
bring them to and capture them. Corsica was then again in the hands of
the French, the temporary and imperfect possession of the English having
terminated three or four years earlier; and Raoul felt certain of a
welcome anywhere in the island and of protection wherever it could be
offered. Such was the state of things when, just as the lugger was
preparing to enter among the shoals, the Proserpine unexpectedly tacked
and seemed to bestow all her attention on the coasters, of which three
or four were so near that two fell into her hands almost without an
effort to escape.

It appeared to Raoul and those with him in his little craft that the
English seized these insignificant vessels solely with a wish for
vengeance, since it was not usual for ships of the force of the
Proserpine to turn aside to molest the poor fishermen and coasters. A
few execrations followed, quite as a matter of course, but the intricacy
of the channel and the necessity of having all his eyes about him soon
drove every other thought from the mind of the dashing privateersman but
such as were connected with the care and safety of his own vessel.

Just as the sun set le Feu-Follet anchored. She had chosen a berth
sufficiently within the shallow water to be safe from the guns of the
frigate, though scarcely within the river. The latter the depth of the
stream hardly permitted, though there was all the shelter that the
season and weather required. The Proserpine manifested no intention to
give up her pursuit; for she, too, came off the outlet and brought up
with one of her bowers about two miles to seaward of the lugger. She
seemed to have changed her mind as to the coasters, having let both
proceed after a short detention, though, it falling calm, neither was
enabled to get any material distance from her until the land-breeze
should rise. In these positions the belligerents prepared to pass the
night, each party taking the customary precautions as to his ground
tackle, and each clearing up the decks and going through the common
routine of duty as regularly as if he lay in a friendly port.

CHAPTER XI.

"The human mind, that lofty thing,
The palace and the throne,
Where reason sits, a sceptred king,
And breathes his judgment tone;
Oh! I who with silent step shall trace
The borders of that haunted place,
Nor in his weakness own,
That mystery and marvel bind
That lofty thing--the human mind!"

ANONYMOUS.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the glories of the Mediterranean. They are
familiar to every traveler, and books have again and again laid them
before the imaginations of readers of all countries and ages. Still,
there are lights and shades peculiar to every picture, and this of ours
has some of its own that merit a passing notice. A sunset, in midsummer,
can add to the graces of almost any scene. Such was the hour when Raoul
anchored; and Ghita, who had come on deck, now that the chase was over
and the danger was thought to be past, fancied she had never seen her
own Italy or the blue Mediterranean more lovely.

The shadows of the mountains were cast far upon the sea, long ere the
sun had actually gone down, throwing the witchery of eventide over the
whole of the eastern coast, some time before it came to grace its
western. Corsica and Sardinia resemble vast fragments of the Alps, which
have fallen into the sea by some accident of nature, where they stand
in sight of their native beds, resembling, as it might be, outposts to
those great walls of Europe. Their mountains have the same formations,
the same white peaks, for no small portion of the year at least, and
their sides the same mysterious and riven aspect. In addition, however,
to their other charms, they have one that is wanting in most of
Switzerland, though traces of it are to be found in Savoy and on the
southern side of the Alps; they have that strange admixture of the soft
and the severe, of the sublime and beautiful, that so peculiarly
characterize the witchery of Italian nature. Such was now the aspect of
all visible from the deck of le Feu-Follet. The sea, with its dark-blue
tint, was losing every trace of the western wind, and was becoming
glassy and tranquil; the mountains on the other side were solemn and
grand, just showing their ragged outlines along a sky glowing with "the
pomp that shuts the day"; while the nearer valleys and narrow plains
were mysterious, yet soft, under the deep shadows they cast. Pianosa lay
nearly opposite, distant some twenty miles, rising out of the water like
a beacon; Elba was visible to the northeast, a gloomy confused pile of
mountain at that hour; and Ghita once or twice thought she could trace
on the coast of the main the dim outline of her own hill, Monte
Argentaro; though the distance, some sixty or seventy miles, rendered
this improbable. Outside, too, lay the frigate, riding on the glassy
surface of the sea, her sails furled, her yards squared, everything
about her cared for and in its place, until she formed a faultless
picture of nautical symmetry and naval propriety. There are all sorts of
men in a marine, as well as in civil life; these taking things as they
come, content to perform their duties in the most quiet manner, while
others again have some such liking for their vessels as the dandy has
for his own person, and are never happy unless embellishing them. The
truth in this, as in most other matters, lies in a medium; the officer
who thinks too much of the appearance of his vessel, seldom having mind
enough to be stow due attention on the great objects for which she was
constructed and is sailed; while, on the other hand, he who is
altogether indifferent to these appearances is usually thinking of
things foreign to his duty and his profession; if, indeed, he thinks at
all. Cuffe was near the just medium, Inclining a little too much,
perhaps, to the naval dandy. The Proserpine, thanks to the builders of
Toulon, was thought to be the handsomest model then afloat in the
Mediterranean, and, like an established beauty, all who belonged to her
were fond of decorating her and of showing her fine proportions to
advantage. As she now lay at single anchor just out of gun-shot from his
own berth, Raoul could not avoid gazing at her with envy, and a bitter
feeling passed through his mind when he recalled the chances of fortune
and of birth, which deprived him of the hope of ever rising to the
command of such a frigate, but which doomed him, seemingly, to the fate
of a privateersman for life.

Nature had intended Raoul Yvard for a much higher destiny than that
which apparently awaited his career. He had come into active life with
none of the advantages that accompany the accidents of birth, and at a
moment in the history of his great nation when its morals and its
religious sentiments had become unsettled by the violent reaction which
was throwing off the abuses of centuries. They who imagine, however,
that France, as a whole, was guilty of the gross excesses that
disfigured her struggles for liberty know little of the great mass of
moral feeling that endured through all the abominations of the times,
and mistake the crimes of a few desperate leaders and the exaggerations
of misguided impulses for a radical and universal depravity. The France
of the Reign of Terror, even, has little more to answer for than the
compliance which makes bodies of men the instruments of the
enthusiastic, the designing, and the active--our own country often
tolerating error that differs only in the degree, under the same blind
submission to combinations and impulses; this very degree, to,
depending more on the accidents of history and natural causes than any
agencies which are to be imputed to the one party as a fault, or to the
other as a merit. It was with Raoul as it had been with his
country--each was the creature of circumstances; and if the man had some
of the faults, he had also most of the merits of his nation and his age.
The looseness on the subject of religion, which was his principal defect
in the eyes of Ghita, but which could scarcely fail to be a material one
with a girl educated and disposed as was the case with our heroine, was
the error of the day, and with Raoul it was at least sincere; a
circumstance that rendered him, with one so truly pious as the gentle
being he loved, the subject of a holy interest, which, in itself, almost
rivalled the natural tenderness of her sex, in behalf of the object of
her affections.

While the short engagement with the boats lasted, and during the few
minutes he was under the fire of the frigate, Raoul had been himself;
the excitement of actual war always nerving him to deeds worthy of his
command and the high name he had acquired; but throughout the remainder
of the day he had felt little disposed to strife. The chase, once
assured that his spars were likely to stand, gave him little concern;
and now that he was at anchor within the shallow water, he felt much as
the traveler who has found a comfortable inn after the fatigue of a hard
day's ride. When Ithuel suggested the possibility of a night-attack in
boats, he laughingly reminded the American that "the burnt child dreads
the fire," and gave himself no great concern in the matter. Still no
proper precaution was neglected. Raoul was in the habit of exacting much
of his men in moments of necessity; but at all other times he was as
indulgent as a kind father among obedient and respectful children. This
quality and the never-varying constancy and coolness that he displayed
in danger was the secret of his great influence with them; every seaman
under his orders feeling certain that no severe duty was required at
his hands without a corresponding necessity for it.

On the present occasion, when the people of le Feu-Follet had supped,
they were indulged in their customary dance, and the romantic songs of
Provence were heard on the forecastle. A light-hearted gayety prevailed,
that wanted only the presence of woman to make the scene resemble the
evening amusement of some hamlet on the coast. Nor was the sex absent in
the sentiment of the hour or wholly so in person. The songs were full of
chivalrous gallantry, and Ghita listened, equally touched and amused.
She sat on the taffrail, with her uncle standing at her side, while
Raoul paced the quarter-deck, stopping, in his turn, to utter some
thought or wish, to ears that were always attentive. At length the song
and the dance ended, and all but the few who were ordered to remain on
watch descended to their hammocks. The change was as sudden as it was
striking. The solemn, breathing stillness of a star-lit night succeeded
to the light laugh, melodious song, and spirited merriment of a set of
men whose constitutional gayety seemed to be restrained by a species of
native refinement that is unknown to the mariners of other regions, and
who, unnurtured as they might be deemed, in some respects, seldom or
never offended against the proprieties, as is so common with the
mariners of the boasted Anglo-Saxon race. By this time the cool air from
the mountains began to descend, and, floating over the heated sea, it
formed a light land-breeze that blew in an exactly contrary direction to
that which, about the same hour, came off from the adjacent continent.
There was no moon, but the night could not be called dark. Myriads of
stars gleamed out from the fathomless firmament, filling the atmosphere
with a light that served to render objects sufficiently distinct, while
it left them clad in a semi-obscurity that suited the witchery of the
scene and the hour. Raoul felt the influence of all these circumstances
in an unusual degree. It disposed him to more sobriety of thought than
always attended his leisure moments, and he took a seat on the taffrail
near Ghita, while her uncle went below to his knees and his prayers.

Every footfall in the lugger had now ceased. Ithuel was posted on a
knight-head, where he sat watching his old enemy, the Proserpine; the
proximity of that ship not allowing him to sleep. Two experienced
seamen, who alone formed the regular anchor-watch, as it is termed, were
stationed apart, in order to prevent conversation; one on the starboard
cathead, and the other in the main rigging; both keeping vigilant ward
over the tranquil sea and the different objects that floated on its
placid bosom. In that retired spot these objects were necessarily few,
embracing the frigate, the lugger, and three coasters, the latter of
which had all been boarded before the night set in, by the Proserpine,
and after short detentions dismissed. One of these coasters lay about
half-way between the two hostile vessels, at anchor, having come-to,
after making some fruitless efforts to get to the northward, by means of
the expiring west wind. Although the light land-breeze would now have
sufficed to carry her a knot or two through the water, she preferred
maintaining her position and giving her people a good night's rest to
getting under way. The situation of this felucca and the circumstance
that she had been boarded by the frigate rendered her an object of some
distrust with Raoul through the early part of the evening, and he had
ordered a vigilant eye to be kept on her; but nothing had been
discovered to confirm these suspicions. The movements of her people--the
manner in which she brought-up--the quiet that prevailed on board her,
and even the lubberly disposition of her spars and rigging, went to
satisfy Raoul that she had no man-of-war's men on board her. Still, as
she lay less than a mile outside of the lugger though now dead to
leeward all that distance, she was to be watched; and one of the seamen,
he in the rigging, rarely had his eyes off her a minute at a time. The
second coaster was a little to the southward of the frigate, under her
canvas, hauling in for the land; doubtless with a view to get as much as
possible of the breeze from the mountains, and standing slowly to the
south. She had been set by compass an hour before, and all that time had
altered her bearings but half a point, though not a league off--a proof
how light she had the wind. The third coaster, a small felucca, too, was
to the northward; but ever since the land-breeze, if breeze it could be
called, had come she had been busy turning slowly up to windward, and
seemed disposed either to cross the shoals closer in than the spot where
the lugger lay or to enter the Golo. Her shadowy outline was visible,
though drawn against the land, moving slowly athwart the lugger's hawse,
perhaps half a mile in-shore of her. As there was a current setting out
of the river, and all the vessels rode with their heads to the island,
Ithuel occasionally turned his head to watch her progress, which was so
slow, however, as to produce very little change.

After looking around him several minutes in silence Raoul turned his
face upward, and gazed at the stars.

"You probably do not know, Ghita," he said, "the use those stars may be,
and are, to us mariners. By their aid, we are enabled to tell where we
are, in the midst of the broadest oceans--to know the points of the
compass, and to feel at home even when furthest removed from it. The
seaman must go far south of the equator, at least, ere he can reach a
spot where he does not see the same stars that he beheld from the door
of his father's house."

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