"A justice of the peace, for the time being, They bow to, but may turn him out next year; They reverence their priest, but, disagreeing In price or creed, dismiss him without fear; They have a natural talent for foreseeing And knowing all things;--and should Park appear From his long tour in Africa, to show The Niger's source, they'd meet him with--We know."
Raoul was not mistaken as to the manner in which they were obtained and the means employed by his enemies. The frigate had found one of the feluccas loaded with naval stores, including some ten or fifteen barrels of tar; and it instantly struck Griffin, who was burning to revenge the defeat of the morning, that the prize might be converted into a fire-vessel. As the second lieutenant volunteered to carry her in, always a desperate service, Cuffe gave his consent. Nothing could have been better managed than the whole duty connected with this exploit, including the manner in which our hero saved his vessel from destruction. The frigate kept between her prize and the lugger, to conceal the fact that a boat remained on board the former, and when all was ready the felucca was apparently permitted to proceed on her voyage. The other two prizes were allowed to go free also, as cloaks to the whole affair. Griffin, as has been seen, kept standing in for the land; his object being to get up stream from the lugger and as near her as possible. When he found himself almost as far ahead as was desirable, drags were used to keep the craft stationary, and in this manner she drifted down on her intended victim, as has been already described. But for the sagacity and uneasiness of Ithuel the plan would altogether have escaped detection; and but for the coolness, courage, and resources of Raoul, it would infallibly have succeeded, notwithstanding the suspicions that had been excited.
Cuffe and the people on deck watched the whole affair with the deepest interest. They were barely able to see the sails of the felucca by means of a night-glass as she was dropping down on the lugger; and Yelverton had just exclaimed that the two vessels were foul of each other, when the flames broke out. As a matter of course, at that distance both craft seemed on fire; and when le Feu-Follet had dropped a hundred yards nearer to the frigate, leaving the felucca blazing, the two were so exactly in a line as to bring them together as seen from the former's decks. The English expected every moment to hear the explosion of the lugger's magazine; but, as it did not happen, they came to the conclusion it had been drowned. As for Griffin, he pulled in-shore, both to avoid the fire of le Feu-Follet, in passing her broadside, and in the hope of intercepting Raoul while endeavoring to escape in a boat. He even went to a landing in the river quite a league from the anchorage, and waited there until long past midnight, when, finding the night beginning to cloud over and the obscurity to increase, he returned to the frigate, giving the smouldering wreck a wide berth for fear of accidents.