Chapter 12 - Page 2

intercepting Raoul while endeavoring to escape in a boat. He
even went to a landing in the river quite a league from the anchorage,
and waited there until long past midnight, when, finding the night
beginning to cloud over and the obscurity to increase, he returned to
the frigate, giving the smouldering wreck a wide berth for fear of
accidents.

Such, then, was the state of things when Captain Cuffe appeared on deck
just as the day began to dawn on the following morning. He had given
orders to be called at that hour, and was now all impatience to get a
view of the sea, more particularly in-shore. At length the curtain
began slowly to rise, and his view extended further and further toward
the river, until all was visible, even to the very land. Not a craft of
any sort was in sight. Even the wreck had disappeared, though this was
subsequently discovered in the surf, having drifted out with the current
until it struck an eddy, which carried it in again, when it was finally
stranded. No vestige of le Feu-Follet, however, was to be seen. Not even
a tent on the shore, a wandering boat, a drifting spar, or a rag of a
sail! All had disappeared, no doubt, in the conflagration. As Cuffe went
below he walked with a more erect mien than he had done since the affair
of the previous morning; and as he opened his writing-desk it was with
the manner of one entirely satisfied with himself and his own exertions.
Still, a generous regret mingled with his triumph. It was a great thing
to have destroyed the most pernicious privateer that sailed out of
France; and yet it was a melancholy fate to befall seventy or eighty
human beings--to perish like so many curling caterpillars, destroyed by
fire. Nevertheless, the thing was done; and it must be reported to the
authorities above him. The following letter was consequently written to
the commanding officer in that sea, viz.:

His Majesty's Ship Proserpine, off the mouth of the Golo,
Island of Corsica, July 23, 1799.

My Lord--I have the satisfaction of reporting, for the information of my
Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the destruction of the Republican
privateer, the le Few-Folly, commanded by the notorious Raoul Yvard, on
the night of the 22d inst. The circumstances attending this important
success are as follows: Understanding that the celebrated picaroon had
been on the Neapolitan and Roman coasts, doing much mischief, I took his
Majesty's ship close in, following up the peninsula, with the land in
sight, until we got through the Canal of Elba, early on the morning of
the 21st. On opening Porto Ferrajo bay, we saw a lugger lying at anchor
off the town, with English colors flying. As this was a friendly port,
we could not suppose the craft to be the le Few-Folly; but,