"Hold on a moment, sir, if you please; I'll come on board you. Perhaps I can help you out of your difficulty; for I happen to know something of that ship."
"Aye, aye--bear a hand, if you please; for we want to make the most of this wind while it stands."
It is singular how easily we are deceived, when the mind commences by taking a wrong direction. Such was now the fact with him in the boat, for he had imbibed the notion that he could trace the outlines of a felucca, of which so many navigate those waters, and the idea that it was the very lugger he had been seeking never crossed his mind. Acting under the delusion, he was soon alongside, and on the deck of his enemy.
"Do you know this gentleman, Etooelle?" demanded Raoul, who had gone to the gangway to receive his visitor.
"It is Mr. Clinch, the master's-mate of the accursed Proserpine; he who spoke us in the yawl, off the point yonder."
"How!" exclaimed Clinch, his alarm being sufficiently apparent in his voice; "have I fallen into the hands of Frenchmen?"
"You have, Monsieur," answered Raoul, courteously, "but not into the hands of enemies. This is le Feu-Follet, and I am Raoul Yvard."
"Then all hope for Jane is gone forever! I have passed a happy day, though a busy one, for I did begin to think there was some chance for me. A man cannot see Nelson without pulling up, and wishing to be something like him; but a prison is no place for promotion."
"Let us go into my cabin, Monsieur. There we can converse more at our ease; and we shall have a light."
Clinch was in despair; it mattered not to him whither he was taken. In the cabin he sat the picture of a helpless man, and a bottle of brandy happening to stand on the table, he eyed it with something like the ferocity with which the hungry wolf may be supposed to gaze at the lamb ere he leaps the fold.