After convincing himself, therefore, by half an hour's further trial in open sailing under the full force of the breeze, of the fruitlessness of his effort, that experienced officer ordered the Proserpine's helm put up, the yards squared, and he stood to the northward, apparently shaping his course for Leghorn or the Gulf of Genoa.

When the frigate made this change in her course, the lugger, which had tacked some time previously, was just becoming shut in by the western end of Elba, and she was soon lost to view entirely, with every prospect of her weathering the island altogether, without being obliged to go about again.
It was no more than natural that such a chase should occasion some animation in a place as retired and ordinarily as dull as Porto Ferrajo.
Several of the young idlers of the garrison obtained horses and galloped up among the hills to watch the result; the mountains being pretty well intersected by bridle-paths, though totally without regular roads.

They who remained in the town, as a matter of course, were not disposed to let so favorable a subject for discourse die away immediately, for want of a disposition to gossip on it.

Little else was talked of that day than the menaced attack of the republican frigate, and the escape of the lugger.

Some, indeed, still doubted, for every question has its two sides, and there was just enough of dissent to render the discussions lively and the arguments ingenious.