To this Cuffe assented, and then he led the way on deck, having previously ordered the boats manned. The two officers proceeded to the spot where they supposed the Feu-Follet had been anchored, and rowed round for near an hour, endeavoring to find some traces of her wreck on the bottom. Griffin suggested that, when the magazine was drowned, in the hurry and confusion of the moment, the cock may have been left open--a circumstance that might very well have carried down the bottom of so small a vessel in two or three hours; more especially after her hull had burnt to the water's edge. The next thing was to find this bottom, by no means a hopeless task, as the waters of the Mediterranean are usually so clear that the eye can penetrate several fathoms, even off the mouth of the Golo--a stream that brought more or less debris from the mountains. It is scarcely necessary to say that the search was not rewarded with success, the Feu-Follet being, just at that time, snug at anchor at Bastia, where her people had already taken out her wounded mainmast, with a view to step a new one in its place. At that very moment, Carlo Giuntotardi, his niece, and Raoul Yvard were walking up the principal street of the town, the place standing on a hill, like Porto Ferrajo, perfectly at their ease as regards fire-ships, English frigates, and the dangers of the seas. But all this was a profound mystery to Cuffe and his companions, who had long been in the habit of putting the most favorable constructions on the results of their professional undertakings, and certainly not altogether without reason; and who nothing doubted that le Feu-Follet had, to use their own language, "laid her bones somewhere along-shore here." After two or three hours passed in fruitless search Cuffe determined to return to his ship. He was a keen sportsman and had brought a fowling-piece with him in his gig, with a half-formed design of landing and whiling away the time, until the westerly wind came, among some marshes that he saw near the shore, but had been persuaded by Griffin not to venture. "There must be woodcock in that wet ground, Griffin," he said, as he reluctantly yielded a little in his intention; "and Winchester would fancy a bird exceedingly in a day or two. I never was hit in my life that I did not feel a desire for game after the fever was gone. Snipe, too, must live on the banks of that stream. Snipe are coming in season now, Griffin?" "It's more likely, sir, that some of the privateersmen have got ashore on planks and empty casks, and are prowling about in the weeds, watching our boats. Three or four of them would be too much for you, Captain Cuffe, as the scoundrels all carry knives as long as ship's cutlasses." "I suppose your notion may be true; and I shall have to give it up. Pull back to the frigate, Davy, and we'll be off after some more of these French ragamuffins."