"That was just my notion. I dare say there may have been twenty women in the lugger."
"I can't answer for the number, sir; but I heard female singing as we got near in the fire-ship, and think it likely there may have been that number. The lugger was full-manned; for they were like bees swarming on her forecastle when we were dropping foul. I saw Raoul Yvard by the light of the fire as plainly as I now see you, and might have picked him off with a musket; but that would hardly have been honorable."
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."