Ghita uttered a faint exclamation, and, looking up, first saw that the feigned lazzarone was no other than Raoul Yvard. As her uncle was too unobservant in general to detect his disguise, he made a sign for her to command herself, and continued rowing as if nothing had occurred. "Be at ease, Ghita," said Carlo; "it is not yet the time, and we have twenty good minutes for our aves." Ghita, however, was far from being at ease. She felt all the risks that the young man now ran, and she felt that it was on her account solely that he incurred them. Even the solemn feeling of the hour and the occasion was disturbed by his presence, and she wished he were away on more accounts than one. Here he was, nevertheless, and in the midst of enemies; and it would not have been in nature for one of her tender years and sex, and, most of all, of her feelings, not to indulge in a sentiment of tender gratitude toward him who had, as it were, thrust his head into the very lion's mouth to do her a service. Between Raoul and Ghita there had been no reserves on the subject of parentage, and the former understood why his mistress was here, as well as the motive that brought her. As for the last, she glanced timidly around her, fearful that the lugger, too, had been brought into the throng of ships that crowded the anchorage. For this, however, Raoul was much too wary, nothing resembling his little craft being visible. The reader will have understood that many vessels of war, English, Russian, Turkish, and Neapolitan, were now anchored in the bay. As the French still held the castle of St. Elmo, or the citadel that crowns the heights, that in their turn crown the town, the shipping did not lie quite as close to the mole as usual, lest a shot from the enemy above might do them injury; but they were sufficiently near to permit all the idle and curious of Naples, who had the hearts and the means, to pull off and become spectators of the sad scene that was about to occur. As the hour drew near, boat after boat arrived, until the Minerva was surrounded with spectators, many of whom belonged even to the higher classes of society.