The skiff which Raoul, having found it lying on the beach, had made free with without leave, he anchored, in the full expectation that its right owner might find it some day or other; while its cargo was transferred to the yawl, which was one of the lugger's own attendants.

The latter was a light, swift-pulling little boat, admirably constructed and fit to live in a sea-way; requiring, moreover, but two good oars, one of which Raoul undertook to pull himself, while Ithuel managed the other.

In five minutes after the junction was made the party was moving again from the land in a straight line across the bay, steering in the direction of its southern cape, and proceeding with the steady, swift movement of men accustomed to the toil.
There are few portions of the sea in which a single ship or boat is an object of so little notice as the Bay of Naples.

This is true of all times and seasons; the magnificent scale on which nature has created her panorama rendering ordinary objects of comparative insignificance; while the constant movement, the fruit of a million of souls thronging around its teeming shores, covers it in all directions with boats, almost as the streets of a town are crowded with pedestrians.

The present occasion, too, was one likely to set everything in motion; and Raoul judged rightly when he thought himself less likely to be observed in such a scene than on a smaller and less frequented water.