"Antoine!--Francois!--Gregoire!"--he called out, in a voice of
thunder--"follow me!--the rest clear away the cable and bend a hawser to
the better end!"
The people of le Feu-Follet were trained to order and implicit
obedience. By this time, too, the lieutenants were among them; and the
men set about doing as they had been directed. Raoul himself passed into
the felucca, followed by the three men he had selected by name. The
adventurers had no difficulty, as yet, in escaping the flames, though by
this time they were pouring upward from the hatch in a torrent. As Raoul
suspected, his cable had been grappled; and, seizing the rope, he
tightened it to a severe strain, securing the in-board part. Then he
passed down to the cable himself, directing his companions to hand him
the rope-end of the shank-painter, which he fastened to the cable by a
jamming hitch. This took half a minute; in half a minute more he was on
the felucca's forecastle again. Here the chain was easily passed through
a hawse-hole, and a knot tied, with a marlinspike passed through its
centre. To pass the fire on the return was now a serious matter; but it
was done without injury, Raoul driving his companions before him. No
sooner did his foot reach the bows of le Feu-Follet again than
he shouted:
"Veer away!--pay out cable, men, if you would save our beautiful lugger
from destruction!"
Nor was there a moment to spare. The lugger took the cable that was
given her fast enough under the pressure of the current and helped by
the breeze; but at first the fire-vessel, already a sheet of flame, her
decks having been saturated with tar, seemed disposed to accompany her.
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