Chapter 17

"Speak to the business, Master Secretary:
Why are we met in council?"

_King Henry VIII._

When the idlers of the Proserpine appeared on deck the following
morning, the ship was about a league to windward of Capri, having forged
well over toward the north side of the bay during the night, wore round
and got thus far back on the other tack. From the moment light returned
lookouts had been aloft with glasses, examining every nook and corner of
the bay, in order to ascertain whether any signs of the lugger were to
be seen under its bold and picturesque shore. So great is the extent of
this beautiful basin, so grand the natural objects which surround it,
and so clear the atmosphere, that even the largest ships loom less than
usual on its waters; and it would have been a very possible thing for le
Feu-Follet to anchor near some of the landings, and lie there unnoticed
for a week by the fleet above, unless tidings were carried to the latter
by observers on the shore.

Cuffe was the last to come on deck, six bells, or seven o'clock,
striking as the group on the quarter-deck first lifted their hats to
him. He glanced around him, and then turned toward Griffin, who was now
officer of the watch.

"I see two ships coming down the bay, Mr. Griffin," he said--"no signals
yet, I suppose, sir?"

"Certainly not, sir, or they would have been reported. We make out the
frigate to be the Terpsichore, and the sloop, I know by her new royals,
is the Ringdove. The first ship, Captain Cuffe, brags of being able to

travel faster than anything within the Straits!"

"I'll bet a month's pay the Few-Folly walks away from her on a bowline,
ten knots to her nine. If she can do that with the Proserpine, she'll at
least do that with Mistress Terpsichore. There goes a signal from the
frigate now, Mr. Griffin, though a conjuror could hardly read it,
tailing directly on as it does. Well, quartermaster, what do you make it
out to be?"

"It's the Terpsichore's number, sir; and the other ship has just made
the Ringdove's."

"Show ours, and keep a sharp lookout; there'll be something else to tell
us presently."

In a few minutes the Terpsichore expressed a wish to speak the
Proserpine, when Cuffe filled his main-topsail and hauled close upon a
wind. An hour later the three ships passed within hail of each other,
when both the junior commanders lowered their gigs and came on board the
Proserpine to report.

Roller followed in the first cutter, which had been towed down by the
Terpsichore.

The Terpsichore was commanded by Captain Sir Frederick Dashwood, a
lively young baronet, who preferred the active life of