Le Feu-Follet remained so stationary that, had she been by compass from any station on the shore, her direction would not have varied a degree the whole time.

But this hour of comparative breeze sufficed to enable Winchester to get out of the harbor with la Divina Providenza, the felucca he had hired, and to round the promontory, under the seeming protection of the guns by which it was crowned; coming in view of the lugger precisely as the latter relieved her man at the helm for ten o'clock.

There were eight or nine men visible on the felucca's deck, all dressed in the guise of Italians, with caps and striped shirts of cotton.

Thirty-five men were concealed in the hold.
Thus far everything was favorable to the wishes of Captain Cuffe and his followers.

The frigate was about a league from the lugger, and half that distance from la Divina Providenza; the latter had got fairly to sea and was slowly coming to a situation from which it might seem reasonable and a matter of course for the Proserpine to send boats in chase; while the manner in which she gradually drew nearer to the lugger was not such as to excite distrust or to appear in the least designed.