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."
After two or three hours passed in fruitless search Cuffe determined to
return to his ship. He was a keen sportsman and had brought a
fowling-piece with him in his gig, with a half-formed design of landing
and whiling away the time, until the westerly wind came, among some
marshes that he saw near the shore, but had been persuaded by Griffin
not to venture.
"There must be woodcock in that wet ground, Griffin," he said, as he
reluctantly yielded a little in his intention; "and Winchester would
fancy a bird exceedingly in a day or two. I never was hit in my life
that I did not feel a desire for game after the fever was gone.
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