It was probably owing to this fever of the mind that the
vice-governatore, a man usually so simple and confiding, was now so
suspicious and keen-sighted. The presence of Carlo Giuntotardi and Ghita
had at first struck him as a little out of the common way; and though
he could not distinguish their faces by the light of the moon and at the
distance at which they were placed in the yawl, he fancied from the
first that his old acquaintances were in the boat the ship was towing.
Now Andrea Barrofaldi certainly had never before that day connected
Ghita or her uncle in any manner with Raoul Yvard; but it was beyond
dispute that the mysterious manner in which they disappeared from the
island had excited some remarks; and in his present state of mind it was
not an extraordinary circumstance that he had some distant and vague
glimmerings of the truth. But for Raoul's indiscreet exclamations,
however, nothing probably would have come of these indistinct fancies;
and we are to refer all that followed to those unguarded outbreakings of
the Frenchman's humor, rather than to any very clear process of
ratiocination on the part of the vice-governatore.
Just as Cuffe made the declaration last recorded, Andrea stepped up to
the spot where he and Griffin were conversing apart and whispered a few
words in the ear of the latter.
"The d--l!" exclaimed the lieutenant, in English. "If what the
vice-governatore tells me be true, Captain Cuffe, the work is half done
to our hands!"
"Aye, the veechy is a good fellow at the bottom, Griffin; though he'll
never burn the bay of Naples.
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