"Signori," she said, "it is a relief to meet countrymen and old acquaintances on board this strange ship; and I look to you for protection. I do not call it strange or evil company for an orphan niece to be on the water with her uncle and one that has ever been a father to her." "Ah--sure enough, vice-governatore, this is Carlo Giuntotardi, the uncle; and the man who dwells so much with the saints, even on earth, that he seldom speaks to a sinner. But thou knowest, little Ghita, that one of thy watermen is no less a person that Raoul Yvard, the wickedest corsair that sails out of France, and the pest and persecution of the whole Italian coast? Did the church condescend to notice such an unbelieving republican, it would be to command all its faithful to unite in their prayers for his destruction." "Raoul Yvard!" repeated Ghita, with sufficient astonishment in her manner to satisfy any reasonable amount of wonder on the part of the other. "Are you certain, Signor Podestà, of the truth of what you say?" "As certain as the confession of the party himself can make us." "Confession, Signore!" "Si, bella Ghita; confession--your boatman--your man of Capri--your lazzarone confesses himself to be neither more nor less than the commander of that worker of iniquity, le Feu-Follet." "Does le Feu-Follet do more than other cruisers of the enemy?"--but Ghita felt she was getting to be indiscreet, and she ceased. "I do believe, Winchester," said Cuffe, "that this is the very girl, and yonder is the very old man who came into Nelson's cabin to-day with something to say about the poor prince who was executed this afternoon!" "What could such people have in common with the unfortunate Caraccioli?" "Sure enough--yet these are the people. The Queen of the Fleet--our Lady Admiraless--had it all to herself; and what passed between them, in Italian, I know no more than if it had been in Greek. She never told _me_, you may rest assured; and, from the look of her eye, I question a good deal if she ever told Nelson." "I wish to heaven his lordship would cut adrift from his moorings alongside that craft, Captain Cuffe. I do assure you, sir, the fleet begins to talk loudly on the subject;--was it any other man, there'd be the devil to pay about it--but we can all stand a good deal from Nelson and Bronté." "Well--well--let every man father his own children: you ought to be quiet, Winchester, for he asked very kindly about your hurt to-day, and would have sent you aboard some knick-knack or other for the stomach, but I told him you were all a-tanto again and at duty. What between his head and his arm and his eye, he's got to be such a hulk himself that he thinks every wounded man a sort of a relation. I should not complain, however, if the small-pox could lay hold of that beauty." "This has been a bad day's work for England, depend on it, Captain Cuffe!"