The Wing-and-Wing; Or, Le Feu-Follet

by James Fenimore Cooper

"Then look among the girls of Languedoc for a wife," answered Ghita, with a smile so melancholy that it contradicted her words. "Better to take one of your own nation and opinions, Raoul, than risk your happiness with a stranger, who might not answer all your hopes when you came to know her better."

"We will not talk further of this now, dearest Ghita; my first care must be to carry you back to the cottage of your aunt--unless indeed you will at once embark in le Feu-Follet and return to the towers?"

"Le Feu-Follet!--she is hardly here, in the midst of a fleet of her enemies!--Remember, Raoul, your men will begin to complain if you place them too often in such risks to gratify your own wishes."

"Peste!--I keep them in good humor by rich prizes. They have been successful; and that which makes yonder Nelson popular and a great man makes Raoul Yvard popular and a great man also in his little way. My crew is like its captain--it loves adventures and it loves success."

"I do not see the lugger--among a hundred ships, there is no sign of yours?"

"The Bay of Napoli is large, Ghita," returned Raoul, laughing; "and le Feu-Follet takes but little room. See-yonder vaisseaux-de-ligne appear trifling among these noble mountains and on this wide gulf; you cannot expect my little lugger to make much show. We are small, Ghita mia, if not insignificant!"

"Still, where there are so many vigilant eyes, there is always danger, Raoul! Besides, a lugger is an unusual rig, as you have owned to me yourself."

"Not here, among all these eastern craft. I have always found, if I wished to be unnoticed, it was best to get into a crowd; whereas he who lives in a village lives in open daylight. But we will talk of these things when alone, Ghita--yonder fisherman is getting ready to receive us."

By this time the skiff was near the shore, where a little yawl was anchored, containing a solitary fisherman. This man was examining them as they approached; and, recognizing Raoul, he was gathering in his lines and preparing to raise his grapnel. In a few minutes the two craft lay side by side; and then, though not without difficulty, owing to a very elaborate disguise, Ghita recognized Ithuel Bolt. A very few words sufficed to let the American into all that it was necessary he should know, when the whole party made its arrangements to depart. The skiff which Raoul, having found it lying on the beach, had made free with without leave, he anchored, in the full expectation that its right owner might find it some day or other; while its cargo was transferred to the yawl, which was one of the lugger's own attendants. The latter was a light, swift-pulling little boat, admirably constructed and fit to live in a sea-way; requiring, moreover, but two good oars, one of which Raoul undertook to pull himself, while Ithuel managed the other. In five minutes after the junction was made the party was moving again from the land in a straight line across the bay, steering in the direction of its southern cape, and proceeding with the steady, swift movement of men accustomed to the toil.

There are few portions of the sea in which a single ship or boat is an object of so little notice as the Bay of Naples. This is true of all times and seasons; the magnificent scale on which nature has created her panorama rendering ordinary objects of comparative insignificance; while the constant movement, the fruit of a million of souls thronging around its teeming shores, covers it in all directions with boats, almost as the streets of a town are crowded with pedestrians. The present occasion, too, was one likely to set everything in motion; and Raoul judged rightly when he thought himself less likely to be observed in such a scene than on a smaller and less frequented water. As a matter of course, while near the mole, or the common anchorage, it was necessary to pass amid a floating throng; but, once beyond the limits of this crowd, the size of the bay rendered it quite easy to avoid unpleasant collisions without any apparent effort; while the passage of a boat in any direction was an occurrence too common to awaken distrust. One would think no more of questioning a craft that was encountered, even in the centre of that spacious bay, than he would think of inquiring about the stranger met in the market-place. All this both Raoul and Ithuel knew and felt; and once in motion, in their yawl, they experienced a sense of security that for the four or five previous hours had not always existed.