The Wing-and-Wing Part 19

"Why, sir, the _name_ can make no great difference; the deeds and the antiquity forming the essentials."

"And he a.s.sumed a t.i.tle, too--_Sir_ Smees!--I dare say he was ready to swear His Majesty made him a Knight Banneret, under the royal ensign and on the deck of his own s.h.i.+p, as was done with some of the old admirals.

The veechy, however, has forgotten a part of the story, as it must have been sir _John_, or Sir _Thomas_ Smees, at least."

"No, sir; that is the way with the French and the Italians, who do not understand our manner of using Christian names with t.i.tles, as in our Sir Edwards and Lord Harries and Lady Betties."

"Blast the French! I can believe anything of _them,_ though I should have thought that these _Italians_ knew better. However, it may be well to give the veechy a hint of what we have been saying, or it may seem rude--and, hark'ye, Griffin, while you _are_ about it, rub him down a little touching books and that sort of thing; for the surgeon tells me he has heard of him in Leghorn as a regular leaf-cutter."

The lieutenant did as ordered, throwing in an allusion to Andrea's reputation for learning, that, under the circ.u.mstances, was not ill-timed, and which, as it was well enough expressed, was exceedingly grateful to his listener just at that awkward moment.

"My claims to literature are but small, Signore," answered Andrea, with humility, "as I beg you will inform Sir Kooffe; but they were sufficient to detect certain a.s.sumptions of this corsair; a circ.u.mstance that came very near bringing about an exposure at a most critical moment. He had the audacity, Signore, to wish to persuade _me_ that there was a certain English orator of the same name and of equal merit of him of Roma and Pompeii--one Sir Cicero!"

"The barone!" again exclaimed Cuffe, when this new offence of Raoul's was explained to him. "I believe the rascal was up to anything. But there is an end of him now, with all his Sir Smees and Sir Ciceros into the bargain. Just let the veechy into the secret of the fellow's fate, Griffin."

Griffin then related to the vice-governatore the manner in which it was supposed that le Feu-Follet, Raoul Yvard, and all his a.s.sociates had been consumed like caterpillars on a tree. Andrea Barrofaldi listened, with a proper degree of horror expressed in his countenance; but Vito Viti heard the tale with signs of indifference and incredulity that he did not care to conceal. Nevertheless, Griffin persevered, until he had even given an account of the manner in which he and Cuffe examined the lugger's anchorage, in the bootless attempt to discover the wreck.

To all this the two functionaries listened with profound attention and a lively surprise. After looking at each other several times, and exchanging significant gestures, Andrea a.s.sumed the office of explaining.

"There is some extraordinary mistake in this, Signor Tenente," he said; "for Raoul Yvard still lives. He pa.s.sed this promontory just as day dawned, in his lugger, this very morning!"

"Aye, he has got that notion from having seen the fellow we fell in with off the harbor here," answered Cuffe, when this speech was translated to him; "and I don't wonder at it, for the two vessels were surprisingly alike. But the barone that we saw burned with our own eyes, Griffin, can never float again. I say barone; for, in my opinion, the Few-Folly was just as much of a rascal as her commander and all who sailed in her."

Griffin explained this; but it met with no favor from the two Italians.

"Not so, Signor Tenente--not so," returned the vice-governatore; "the lugger that pa.s.sed this morning, we _know_ to be le Feu-Follet, inasmuch as she took one of our own feluccas, in the course of the night, coming from Livorno and Raoul Yvard permitted her to come in, as he said to her padrone, on account of the civil treatment he had received while lying in our port. Nay, he even carried his presumption so far as to send me, by means of the same man, the compliments of 'Sir Smees,' and his hopes of being able some day to make his acknowledgments in person."

The English Captain received this intelligence as might be expected; and unpleasant as it was, after putting various questions to the vice-governatore and receiving the answers, he was obliged, unwillingly enough, to believe it all. He had brought his official report in his pocket; and as the conversation proceeded, he covertly tore it into fragments so small that even a Mahommedan would reject them as not large enough to write the word "Allah" on.

"It's d--d lucky, Griffin, that letter didn't get to Leghorn this morning," he said, after a long pause. "Nelson would have Bronted me famously had he got it! Yet I never believed half as devoutly in the twenty-nine articles as--"

"I believe there are _thirty_-nine of them, Captain Cuffe," modestly put in Griffin.

"Well, _thirty_-nine, if you will--what signifies ten, more or less, in such matters? A man is ordered to believe them _all_, if there were a hundred. But I never believed in _them_ as devoutly as I believed in the destruction of that infernal picaroon. My faith is unsettled for life!"

Griffin offered a few words of condolence, but he was also too much mortified to be very able to administer consolation. Andrea Barrofaldi, understanding the state of the case, now interposed with his courtesies, and the two officers were invited to share his bachelor's breakfast.

What followed, in consequence of this visit, and the communications to which it gave rise, will appear in the course of the narrative.

CHAPTER XIII.

"If ever you have looked on better days, If ever been where bells have knolled to church; If ever sat at any good man's feast!

If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied, Let gentleness my strong enforcement be."

SHAKESPEARE.

It is now necessary to advance the time, and to transfer the scene of our tale to another, but not a distant, part of the same sea. Let the reader fancy himself standing at the mouth of a large bay of some sixteen or eighteen miles in diameter, in nearly every direction; though the sh.o.r.es must be indented with advancing promontories and receding curvatures, while the depth of the whole might possibly a little exceed the greatest width. He will then occupy the spot of which we wish to present to him one of the fairest panoramas of earth. On his right stands a high, rocky island of dark tufa, rendered gay, amid all its magnificent formations, by smiling vineyards and teeming villages, and interesting by ruins that commemorate events as remote as the Caesars. A narrow pa.s.sage of the blue Mediterranean separates this island from a bold cape on the main, whence follows a succession of picturesque, village-clad heights and valleys, relieved by scenery equally bold and soft, and adorned by the monkish habitations called in the language of the country Camaldolis, until we reach a small city which stands on a plain that rises above the water between one and two hundred feet, on a base of tufa, and the houses of which extend to the very verge of the dizzy cliffs that limit its extent on the north. The plain itself is like a hive, with its dwellings and scenes of life, while the heights behind it teem with cottages and the signs of human labor. Quitting this smiling part of the coast, we reach a point, always following the circuit of the bay, where the hills or heights tower into ragged mountains, which stretch their pointed peaks upward to some six or seven thousand feet toward the clouds, having sides now wild with precipices and ravines, now picturesque with shooting-towers, hamlets, monasteries, and bridle-paths; and bases dotted, or rather lined, with towns and villages. Here the mountain formation quits the margin of the bay, following the coast southward or running into the interior of the country; and the sh.o.r.e, sweeping round to the north and west, offers a glimpse into a background of broad plain ere it meets a high, insulated, conical mountain, which properly forms the head of the coast indentation. The human eye never beheld a more affluent scene of houses, cities, villages, vineyards, and country residences than was presented by the broad breast of this isolated mountain, pa.s.sing which a wider view is obtained of the rich plain that seems to lie behind it, bounded as it is by a wall of a distant and mysterious-looking, yet bold range of the Apennines. Returning to the sh.o.r.e, which now begins to incline more westwardly, we come to another swell of tufa, which has all the characteristic fertility and abruptness of that peculiar formation, a vast and populous town of near half a million of souls being seated, in nearly equal parts, on the limits of the plain and along the margin of the water, or on the hill-sides, climbing to their summits. From this point the northern side of the bay is a confused ma.s.s of villages, villas, ruins, palaces, and vines, until we reach its extremity, a low promontory, like its opposite neighbor. A small island comes next, a sort of natural sentinel; then the coast sweeps northward into another and a smaller bay, rich to satiety with relics of the past, terminating at a point some miles further seaward, with a high, reddish, sandy bluff, which almost claims to be a mountain. After this we see two more islands lying westward, one of which is flat, fertile, and more populous, as is said, than any other part of Europe of the same extent; while the other is a glorious combination of pointed mountains, thronged towns, fertile valleys, castles, country houses, and the wrecks of long-dormant volcanoes, thrown together in a grand yet winning confusion. If the reader will to this description add a sh.o.r.e that has scarce a foot that is not interesting with some lore of the past, extending from yesterday into the darkest recesses of history, give life to the water-view with a fleet of little latine-rigged craft, rendered more picturesque by an occasional s.h.i.+p, dot the bay with countless boats of fishermen, and send up a wreath of smoke from the summit of the cone-like mountain that forms the head of the bay, he will get an outline of all that strikes the eye as the stranger approaches Naples from the sea.

The zephyr was again blowing, and the daily fleet of sparanaras, or undecked feluccas, that pa.s.ses every morning at this season, from the south sh.o.r.e to the capital, and returns at this hour, was stretching out from under Vesuvius; some looking up as high as Ma.s.sa; others heading toward Sorrento or Vico or Persano, and many keeping more before the wind, toward Castel-a-Mare, or the landings in that neighborhood. The breeze was getting to be so fresh that the fishermen were beginning to pull in toward the land, breaking up their lines, which in some places had extended nearly a league, and this, too, with the boats lying within speaking distance of each other. The head of the bay, indeed, was alive with craft moving in different directions, while a large fleet of English, Russians, Neapolitans, and Turks, composed of two-deckers, frigates, and sloops, lay at their anchors in front of the town. On board of one of the largest of the former was flying the flag of a rear-admiral at the mizzen, the symbol of the commander's rank. A corvette alone was under-way. She had left the anchorage an hour before, and, with studding-sails on her starboard side, was stretching diagonally across the glorious bay, apparently heading toward the pa.s.sage between Capri and the Point of Campanella, bound to Sicily. This s.h.i.+p might easily have weathered the island; but her commander, an easy sort of person, chose to make a fair wind of it from the start, and he thought, by hugging the coast, he might possibly benefit by the land-breeze during the night, trusting to the zephyr that was then blowing to carry him across the Gulf of Salerno. A frigate, too, shot out of the fleet, under her staysails, as soon as the westerly wind made; but she had dropped an anchor under-foot, and seemed to wait some preparation, or orders, before taking her departure; her captain being at that moment on board the flag-s.h.i.+p, on duty with the rear-admiral.

This was the Proserpine thirty-six, Captain Cuffe, a vessel and an officer that are already both acquaintances of the reader. About an hour before the present scene opens, Captain Cuffe, in fact, had been called on board the Foudroyant by signal, where he had found a small, sallow-looking, slightly-built man, with his right arm wanting, pacing the deck of the fore-cabin, impatient for his appearance.

"Well, Cuffe," said this uninviting-looking personage, twitching the stump of the maimed arm, "I see you are out of the flock; are you all ready for sailing?"

"We have one boat ash.o.r.e after letters, my lord; as soon as she comes off we shall lift our anchor, which is only under-foot."

"Very well--I have sent the Ringdove to the southward on the same errand, and I see she is half a league from the anchorage on her way already. This Mr. Griffin appears to be a fine young man--I like his account of the way he handled his fire-s.h.i.+p; though the French scoundrel did contrive to escape! After all, this Rowl E--E--how do you p.r.o.nounce the fellow's name, Cuffe? I never can make anything out of their gibberish--"

"Why, to own the truth, Sir Horatio--I beg pardon--my lord--there is something in the English grain of my feelings that would prevent my ever learning French, had I been born and brought up in Paris. There is too much Saxon in me to swallow words that half the time have no meaning."

"I like you all the better for that, Cuffe," answered the admiral, smiling, a change that converted a countenance that was almost ugly when in a state of rest into one that was almost handsome--a peculiarity that is by no means of rare occurrence, when a strong will gives expression to the features, and the heart, at bottom, is really sound. "An Englishman has no business with any Gallic tendencies. This young Mr.

Griffin seems to have spirit; and I look upon it always as a good sign when a young man _volunteers_ for a desperate thing of this sort--but he tells me he is only second; where was your first all the while?"

"Why, my lord, he got a little hurt in the brush of the morning; and I would not let him go, as a matter of course. His name is Winchester; I think you must remember him as junior of the Captain, at the affair off St. Vincent. Miller[4] had a good opinion of him; and when I went from the Arrow to the Proserpine he got him sent as my second. The death of poor Drury made him first in the natural way."

[4] Ralph Willet Miller, the officer who commanded the s.h.i.+p to which Nelson s.h.i.+fted his pennant, at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. This gentleman was an American, and a native Manhattanese; his near relatives of the same name still residing in New York. It is believed that he got the name of _Willet_ from the first English Mayor, a gentleman from whom are descended many of the old families of the lower part of the state, more particularly those on Long Island.

"I have some recollection of him, Cuffe. That was a brilliant day, and all its events should be impressed on my mind. You tell me Mr. Griffin fairly grappled the lugger's cable?"

"Of that there can be no manner of doubt. I saw the two vessels foul of each other with my night-gla.s.s--and seemingly both were on fire--as plainly as I ever saw Vesuvius in a dark night."

"And yet this Few-Folly has escaped! Poor Griffin has run a desperate risk for little purpose."

"He has, indeed, my lord."

Here, Nelson, who had been pacing the cabin with quick steps, while Cuffe stood, respectfully declining the gesture to be seated at the table in its centre, suddenly stopped and looked the Captain steadily in the face. The expression of his countenance was now mild and earnest, and the pause which preceded his words gave the latter solemnity and weight.

"The day will come, Cuffe," he said, "when this young man will rejoice that his design on these picaroons, Frenchmen as they are, failed. Yes, from the bottom of his heart will he be glad."

"My lord!"

"I know you think this strange, Captain Cuffe; but no man sleeps the sounder for having burnt or blown up a hundred of his fellow-creatures like so many widows at a suttee. But we are not the less to commend those who did what was certainly their duty."

"Am I to understand, Lord Nelson, that the Proserpine is _not_ to destroy the Few-Folly at every hazard, should we again have the luck to fall in with her?"

"By no means, sir. Our orders are to burn, sink, and destroy. Such is England's policy in this desperate war; and it must be carried out. You know what we are contending for as well as I do; and it is a struggle that is not to be carried on with courtesies; still, one would not wish to see a glorious and sacred cause tarnished by inhumanity. Men that fall in fair, manly combat are to be envied rather than pitied, since it is only paying the great debt of nature a little sooner than might otherwise have happened; but there is something revolting to humanity in burning up our fellow-creatures as one would burn rags after the plague.

Nevertheless, this lugger must be had at any price; for English commerce and English power are not to be cut up and braved in this audacious manner with impunity. The career of these French tigers must be stopped at every sacrifice, Captain Cuffe."

"I know that, my lord, and I like a republican as little as you can do, or His Majesty himself, for that matter; and, I take it, _he_ has as little relish for the animal as flesh and blood can give."

"I know you do, Cuffe--I'm _sure_ you do; and I esteem you all the more for it. It is a part of an Englishman's religion, in times like these, to hate a Frenchman. I went across the Channel after the peace of '83 to learn their language, but had so little sympathy with them, even in peaceable times, as never to be able to make out to write a letter in it, or even to ask intelligibly for the necessaries of life."

"If you can ask for anything, it far surpa.s.ses my efforts; I never can tell head from stern in their dialect."

"It is an infernal jargon, Cuffe, and has got to be so confused by their academies, and false philosophy and infidelity, that they will shortly be at a loss to understand it themselves. What sort of names they give their s.h.i.+ps, for instance, now they have beheaded their king and denounced their G.o.d! Who ever heard of christening a craft, as you tell me this lugger is named, the 'Few-Folly'? I believe I've got the picaroon's t.i.tle right?"

"Quite right--Griffin _p.r.o.nounces_ it so, though he has got to be a little queerish in his own English, by using so much French and Italian.

The young man's father was a consul; and he has half a dozen foreign lingoes stowed away in his brain. He p.r.o.nounces Folly something broadish--like Fol-_lay_, I believe; but it means all the same thing.