"Gobbo. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to Master Jew's?
"Launcelot. Turn up on the right hand at the next turning, but at the very next turning of all, on your left: marry at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's house.
"Gobbo. By God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit." The Merchant of Venice.
At eleven o'clock that night we four—the Princess, Marc'antonio, Stephanu, and I—hoisted sail and stood away from the north shore of Giraglia, carrying a fair wind with us. Our boat had been very cunningly chosen for us by Marc'antonio out of the small flotilla which my father had hired at Cape Corso for the assault. She was undecked, measured some eighteen feet over-all, and carried a fair-sized lateen sail; but her great merit for our purpose, lay in her looks. The inhabitants of Cape Corso (as the reader knows) have neither the patriotism nor the prejudices of their fellow-islanders; and this (however her owner had come by her) was a boat of Genoese build. So Marc'antonio had assured me; and my own observation confirmed it next day, as we neared the coast off Porto Fino.
We had laid this course of set purpose, intending to work up to the great harbour coastwise from the southward and enter it boldly, passing ourselves off for a crew from Porto Fino with a catch of fish for market. The others had discarded all that was Corsican in their dress, and the Princess had ransacked the quarters of the late garrison on Giraglia to rig us out in odds and ends of Genoese costume. For the rest we trusted to fortune; but an hour before starting I had sought out my Uncle Gervase and made him privy to the plot. He protested, to be sure; but acquiesced in the end with a wry face when I told him that the Princess and I were determined.
This understood, at once my excellent and most practical uncle turned to business. Within ten minutes it was agreed between us that the Gauntlet should sail back with General Paoli and anchor under the batteries of Isola Rossa to await our return. She was to wait there one month exactly. If within that time we did not return, he was to conclude either that our enterprise had come to grief or that we had re-shaped our designs and without respect to the Gauntlet's movements. In any event, at the end of one calendar month he might count himself free to weigh anchor for England. We next discussed the Queen. My uncle opined, but could not say with certainty, that the General had it in mind to offer her protection and an honourable retirement on her own estates above the Taravo. I bade him tell her that, if she could wean herself from Corsica to follow her daughter, our house of Constantine would be proud to lodge her—I hoped, for the remainder of her days—for certain, until she should tire of it and us.
The rest (I say) we left to chance, which at first served us smoothly. The breeze, though it continued fair, fell light soon after daybreak, and noon was well past before we sighted the Ligurian coast. We dowsed sail and pulled towards it leisurably, waiting for the hour when the fishing-boats should put out from Porto Fino: which they did towards sunset, running out by ones and two's before the breeze which then began to draw off the land, and making a pretty moving picture against the evening glow. When night had fallen we hoisted our lateen again and worked up towards them.
These fishermen (as I reasoned, from our own Cornish practice) would shoot their nets soon after nightfall and before the moon's rising— to haul them, perhaps, two hours later, and await the approach of morning for their second cast. Towards midnight, then, we sailed boldly up to the outermost boat and spoke her through Marc'antonio, who (fas est ab hoste doceri) had in old campaigns picked up enough of the Genoese patois to mimic it very passably. He announced us as sent by certain Genoese fishmongers—a new and enterprising firm whose name he invented on the spur of the moment—to trade for the first catch of fish and carry them early to market, where their freshness would command good prices. The fishermen, at first suspicious, gave way at sight of the Genoese money in his hand, and accepted an offer which not only saved them a journey but (as we calculated) put from three to four extra livres in their pockets. Within twenty minutes they had transferred two thousand fish to our boat, and we sailed off into the darkness, ostensibly to trade with the others. Doubtless they wished us good night for a set of fools.
We did not trouble their fellows. Two thousand fish, artfully spread to look like thrice the number, ought to pass us under the eyes of all Genoa: so for Genoa we headed forthwith, hauling up on the starboard tack and heeling to our gunwale under the breeze which freshened and blew steadily off the shore.
Sunrise found us almost abreast of the harbour: and the clocks from the city churches were striking seven as we rounded up under the great mole on the eastern side of the entrance and floated into the calm basin within. I confess that my heart sank as Genoa opened in panorama before us, spreading in a vast semicircle with its dockyards and warehouses, its palaces, its roofs climbing in terrace after terrace to the villas and flower-gardens on the heights: nor was this sense of our impudence lessened by reflecting that, once within the mole, we had not a notion to which of the quays a fishing-boat ought to steer to avoid suspicion. But here, again, fortune helped us. To the right, at the extreme inner corner of the mole, I espied half a dozen boats, not unlike our own, huddled close under a stone stairway; and I had no sooner thrust down the helm than a man, catching sight of us, came running along the mole to barter.