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." 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.