The Wing-and-wing; or, Le Feu follet

Preface

THE question, of how much of the following legend is severely true, and how much fiction, is left in doubt, with the express intention, that such histo rians, as having nothing useful to do, may employ their time in drawing the lines for their own amuse« tnent.

As to the scene chosen for this tale, no apology i* deemed necessary. To invent excuses for carrying a man, either physically or in the imagination, into a sea like the Mediterranean, and on a coast like that of Italy, would be an affectation of which we have no idea of being guilty. It is true — nay, it is proba ble — that we may render the execution unequal to the design, but there can be no great harm in nobly daring, except to him who is injured by his own failure. We hope that they who have ever beheld the scenes we have faintly and so imperfectly described, will pardon our defects, for the good we have intended them ; and that those who have never been so for tunate, will find even our tame pictures so much superior to the realities they have elsewhere witness ed, as to fancy we have succeeded.

Of Raoul Yvard Ghita Caraccioli, and the Little Folly, we have no more to say than is to be found in the body of the work. As Sancho told the knight, they

IV PREFACE.

\vho gave us the facts connected with all three — we class a vessel among animals — said they were so cer tain, that we might safely swear they were absolutely true. If we are in error, it is a misfortune we share in common with honest Panza, and that, too, on a subject about equal, in moment, to the one in which he was misled.

After all, the world hears little, and knows less, of the infinity of details that make up the sum of the incidents of the sea. Historians glean a few prom* inent circumstances, connected perhaps with battles, treaties, shipwrecks, or chases, and the rest is left a blank to the great bulk of the human race. It has been well said, that the life of every man, if sirnpiy and clearly related, would be found to contain a fund of useful and entertaining information ; and it is equally true, that the day of every ship would fur nish something of interest to relate, could the dry records of the log-book be given in the graphic lan guage of observation and capacity. A ship, alone, in the solitude of the ocean, is an object for reflection, and a source of poetical, as well as of moral feeling ; and as we seldom tire of writing about her, we have more than a sympathetic desire, that they who do us the honour to form a sort of literary clientelle, will never tire of reading.

Our chief concern, on the present occasion, is on the subject of the contrast we have attempted to draw between profound belief and light-hearted in fidelity. We think both pictures true to the periods

PREFACE. V

and the respective countries, and we have endeavour ed to draw both with due relief, and totally without r\, iteration. That strong natural sympathies can exist between those who are widely separated on such a subject, every day's experience proves; and that some are to be found in whom principle is stronger than even the most insinuating and deceptive of ail our passions, we not only hope, but trustfully believe. We have endeavoured to assign the higher and most enduring quality to that portion of the race, in which we are persuaded it is the most likely to be found.

This is the seventh sea-tale we have ventured to offer to the public. When the first was written, our friends confidently predicted its failure, on account of the meagreness of the subject, as well as of its disagreeable accompaniments. Not only did that pre diction prove untrue, as to our own humble effort, but the public taste has lasted sufficiently long to receive, from other quarters, a very respectable pro geny of that parent of this class of writing. We only hope that, in the present instance, there may }>e found a sufficient family resemblance, to allow of this particular bantling to pass in the crowd, as one of a numerous family.

Chapter I

* Filled with the face of heaven, which from afar,

Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues,

From the rich sunset to the rising star,

Their magical variety diffuse :

And now they change ; a paler shadow strews

Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day

Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues

With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is grey."

Cnilde Harold.

THE charms of the Tyrrhenian Sea have been sung since the days of Homer. That the Mediterranean, generally, and its beautiful boundaries of Alps and Apennines, with its deeply indented and irregular shores, forms the most delightful region of the known earth, in all that relates to climate, productions, and physical formation, will be readily enough conceded by the traveller. The countries that border on this midland water, with their promontories buttressing a mimic ocean — their mountain-sides teeming with the pictu resque of human life — their heights crowned with watch-towers — their rocky shelves consecrated by hermitages, and their unrivalled sheet dotted with sails, rigged, as it might bo, expressly to produce cflK-t in a picture, form a sort of world apart, that is replete with delights to all who have the happy fortune to feel charms, which not only fascinate the beholder, but which linger in the memories of the absent like visiom of a glorious j--

Our present business is with this fragment of a creation that is so eminently beautiful, even in its worst aspects, but which is so often marred by the passions of man, in its best. While all admit how much nature has done for the Mediter ranean, none will deny that, until quite recently, it has been the scene of more ruthless violence, and of deeper personal wrongs, perhaps, than any other portion of the globe. With different races., more widely separated by destinies, than even hyptigta, habits and religion, occupying its northern and southern Chores, the outwork, as it might be, of Christianity and AioKa»ii'y,cdamsni, and of an antiquity that defies history, ihe bor-om cf this blue expanse has mirrored more violence, has witnessed more scenes of slaughter, and heard more shouts of victory, between the days of Agamemnon and Nelson, than all the rest of the dominions of Neptune together. Nature and the passions have united to render it like the human countenance, which conceals by its smiles and god like expression, the furnace that so often glows within the heart, and the volcano that consumes our happiness. For centuries, the Turk and the Moor rendered it unsafe for the European to navigate these smiling coasts ; and when the barbarian's power temporarily ceased, it was merely to give place to the struggles of those who drove him from the arena by their larger resources.

The circumstances which rendered the period that occurred between the years 1790 and 1815, the most eventful of modern times, are familiar to all ; though the incidents which chequered that memorable quarter of a century, have already passed into history. All the elements of strife that then agitated the world, appear now to have subsided as completely as if they owed their existence to a remote age ; and living men recall ,the events of their youth, as they regard the recorded incidents of other centuries. Then, each month brought its defeat, or its victory ; its account of a govern ment overturned, or of a province conquered. The world was agitated like men in a tumult. On that epoch the timid look back with wonder ; the young, with doubt ; and the restless, with envy.

The years 1798 and 1799 were two of the most memor able of this ever-memorable period; and to that stirring and teeming season we must carry the mind of the reader, in order to place it in the midst of the scenes it is our object to portray.

Towards the close of a fine day in the month of August, a light lairy-likr craft vv;> her way, he fore a gentle

•!\ air, iutti \\hat is calkd tin- Canal of Piombino, v. The rigs of the Mediterranean arc provrrhial for tlji-ir picturesque beauty ami qnaintness, CIIN hracin • •••heqnc, the felucca, the polacrc, and !!•••:

homharda. or ketch ; all unknown, or nearly so, to our own s' aa : an.l o.-ra^ionally the burger. The latter, a craft, however, much less common in the waters of Italy, than in the IViy of Biscay and the British Channel, was the construction of the vessel in question; a circumstance that the mariners whoryed her from the shores of Elba, deemed indicative of mischief. A three-masted lugger, that spread a wide hn-adih of canvass, with a low, dark hull, relieved by a single and almost imperceptible line of red beneath her channels, and a waist so deep that nothing was visihle it but the hat of some mariner, taller than common, was considered a suspicious vessel, and not even a fisherman would have ventured out within reach of a shot, so long as her character was unknown. Privateers, or corsairs, as it *vas the fashion to term them, (and the name, with even its MiiLrlish signification, was often merited by their acts,) not unfivquently glided down that coast; and it was someti;u"s dangerous for those who belonged to friendly nations to meet them, i^ moments when the plunder that a relic of narharism still legalizes, had failed.

The lugger was actually of about one hundred and fifty tons admeasurement; but her dark paint, and low hull, gave h< r an appearance of being much smaller than she really wa<; still, the spread of her canvass, as she came down before the wind wing-and-wiug, as seamen term it, or with a sail fanninir like the heavy pinions of a sea-fowl, on each side, betrayed her pursuits; and, as has been intimated, the mariners on the shore, who watched her movements, shook their heads in d 'hey communed among themselves,

in very indifferent Italian, concerning her destination and object. This ohserva'ion, with its accompanying discourse, occurred on the rocky bluff abore the town of Porto l-Yrrajo, in the Island of Elba, a spot that has since become so re nowned as the capital of the mimic dominion of Napoleon. Indeed, ihe very dwelling which was subsequently used by the fallen emperor as a palace, stood within a hundred yards of the speakers, looking out towards the entrance of the canal, and the mountains of Tuscany; or rather, of the little principality of Piombino, the system of merging the smaller in the larger states, of Europe not having yet been brought into extensive operation. This house, a building of the size of a better sort of country residence of our own, was then, as now, occupied by the Florentine governor of the Tuscan portion of the island. It stands on the extremity of a low rocky promontory that forms the western ramparts of the deep extensive bay, on the side of which, ensconced behind a very convenient curvature of the rocks, which here incline westward in the form of a hook, lies the small port, completely concealed from the sea, as if in dread of visits like those which might be expected from craft resembling the. suspicious stranger. This little port, not as large in itself as a modern dock in places like London or Liverpool, was sufficiently protected against any probable dangers, by suitable batteries ; and as for the elements, a vessel laid upon a shelf in a closet would be scarcely more secure. In this domestic little basin, which, with the exception of a narrow entrance was completely surrounded by buildings, lay a few feluccas, that traded between the island and the adja cent main, and a solitary Austrian ship, which had come from the head of the Adriatic, in quest of i|pn, as it was pretended, but as much to assume the appearance of trade with the Italian dependency, as with any other purpose.

At the moment of which we are writing, however, but a dozen living beings were visible in or about all these craft. The intelligence that a strange lugger, resembling the one described, was in the offing, had drawn nearly all the mari ners ashore ; and most of the habitues of the port had fol lowed them up the broad steps of the crooked streets which led to the heights behind the town ; or to the rocky eleva* tion that overlooks the sea from north-east to west. The approach of the lugger had produced some such effect on the mariners of this unsophisticated and little-frequented port, as that of the hawk is known to excite among the timid tenants of the barn-yard. The rig of the stranger, in itself a suspicious circumstance, had been noted two hours before, by one or t\vo old coasters, who habitually passed their idle moments on ! In • xamining the signs of the weather,

and indulging in gossip; and their conj; i drawn to

.11 some t> . i, who fancied them-

-iy were, cognoscenti in matters of the

When, however, the low, long, dark hull, which upheld such wide sheets of canvass, became fairly visible, the omens thickened) rumours spread, and hundreds eoi; on the spot, which, in Manha;: , lance, would pr.ia-

blv have been called a battery. Nor would the name have

([together inappropriate, as a small battery was estabii-h'-d there, and that, too, in a position which would • throw a shot two-thirds of a league, into the ofiing; or about the distance that the stranger was now from the shore.

Tommaso Tonti was the oldest mariner of Elba, and, luckily, being a sober, and usually a discreet man, he was the oracle of the island, in most things that related to tho sea. As each citizen, wine-dealer, grocer, innkeeper, or worker in iron, came upon the height, he incontinently in-

i lor Tonti, or 'Maso, as he was generally called ; and getting the bearings and distance of the grey-headed old seaman, he invariably made his way to his side, until a group of some two hundred men, women and children, had clustered near the person of the pilota, as the faithful gather about a favourite expounder of the law, in moni'-iits of religious excitement. It was worthy of remark, too, with how much consideration this little crowd of gentle Italians treated their aged seaman, on this occasion ; none bawling out their questions, and all using the greatest care no1 in front of his person, lest they might intercept "his means of observation. Five or six old sailors, like himself, were close at his side: these, it i:i true, did not hesitate to

• •,'un" their experience. But Tonti had obtained no small part of his reputation by exercising great moderation in delivering his oracles, and, perhaps, by deeming to more than he actual!- . '.therefore;

and while his brethren of the sea ventured on sund; flicting opinions concerning the character of ll; and a hundred idle conjectures had flown from mouth to mouth, among the landsmen and females, not a syllable that could commit the old man, had escaped his lips. ITe let tho others talk at will ; as for himself, it suited his habits, and possibly his difficulties in deciding, to main. am a grave and portentous silence.

We have spoken of females : as a matter of course, an event like this, in a town of some three or four thousand souls, would be likely to draw a due proportion of the gentler sex to the heights. Most of them contrived to get as near as possible to the aged seaman, in order to obtain the firs* intelligence, that it might be the sooner circulated ; but, it would seem, that among the younger of these, there was also a, sort of oracle of their own, about whose person gathered a dozen of the prettiest girls ; either anxious to hear what Ghita might have to say in the premises, or, perhaps, influenced by the pride and modesty of their sex and condi tion, which taught them to maintain a little more reserve than was necessary to the less refined portion of their com panions. In speaking of condition, however, the word must be understood with an exceedingly limited meaning. Porto Fcrrajo hacl but two classes of society, the trades-people and the labourers ; although there were, perhaps, a dozen excep tions, in the persons of a few humble functionaries of the government, an avvacato, a medico, and a few priests. The governor of the island was a Tuscan of rank, but he seldom honoured the place with his presence, and his deputy was a professional man, a native of the town, whose original position was too well known to allow him to give himself airs on the spot where he was born. Ghita's companions, then, were daughters of shopkeepers, and persons of that class, who, having been taught to read, and occasionally going io Leghorn, beside being admitted by the deputy to the presence of his housekeeper, had got to regard themselves as a little elevated above the more vulgar curiosity of the less culti vated girls of the port. C4hita herself, however, owed her ascendency to her qualities, rather than to the adventitious advantage of being a grocer's or an inkecper's daughter, her origin being unknown to most of those around her, as indeed was her family name. She had been landed six weeks before, and left by one who passed for her father, at the inn of Cristoforo Dovi, as a boarder, and had acquired all her influence, as so many reach notoriety in our own simple society, by the distinction of bavins; travelled ; aided, some* what, by her strong sense, great decision of character, perfeet modesty and propriety of deportment, with a form which

agularlv graeeful and feminine, and a face, that, while

it COP. :• "iuriiiil, was, in the'highcst

•. winning and attractive. No one thought of asking

: never app --m it necessary

.»:iou it. Cihita was sufficient ; it was familiar to every

and, although there were two or three others of the

Nation, in i'orto L'Vrrajo. this, by common consent,

got to bo the Gliitu, within a week after sin: had landed.

(Ihita, it v.as known, had travelled, for she: had publicly reached Kiba in a felucca, coming, as was said, Iron) the :itan slates. If this were true, she was probably th-j only person of her sex in the town, who had ever viiis, or planted her eyes on the wonders of a part of Italy that has a reputation second only to that of Rome. Of course, if any girl in Porto Perrajo could imagine the character of traoger, it mast !>•> (Jhita; and it was on this snpposit: -n lint she had unwittingly, and, if the truth must be owned, unwillingly, collected around her a clicntclle. of at least a d ./.-MI ^irls of her n\\ n age. -id apparently of her own class. The latter, however, felt no necessity for the reserve main tained by the curious who pressed near \\faso; for, whi!o . -spectcd their guest and friend, and would rather listen t > "her surmises than those of any other person, they had a prompting desire to hear their own voices, that not a minute escaped without a question, or a conjecture, both volubly and (pile audibly expressed. The interjections, too, somewhat numerous, as the guesses wen: crude and !. On" said it was a vessel wilh despatches from Livorno, pn^ibly \\!;h " His Iv-crllen/a"1 on board; but she was reminded that ; lay to the north, and not to

th" \\ . >ther thought it was a cargo of pri from • i Home; but she was told that | ,

n >• la .ur, just then, in F.

i about. While a third, m nv in> i to doubt whether it was a •

at a!! : wt being of rr>.n»

oceurren -e, and us:; .

«* »S' . ;;n:na, *' but tijat would be a inimcle, Maria;

VOL. I. — 2 and why should we have a miracle, now that Lent and most of the holidays are past? /believe it is a real vessel."

The others laughed, and, after a good deal of eager chat tering on the subject, it was quite generally admitted that the stranger was a bond fide craft, of some species or an other, though all agreed she was not a felucca, a bombarda, or a sparanara. All this time Ghita was thoughtful and silent ; quite as much so, indeed, as Tommaso himself, though from a very different motive. Notwithstanding all the gossip, and the many ludicrous opinions of her companions, her eyes scarcely turned an instant from the lugger, on which they seemed to be riveted by a sort of fascination. Had there been one, there, sufficiently unoccupied to observe this interesting girl, he might have been struck with the varying expression of a countenance that was teeming with sensibility, and which too often reflected the passing emotions of its mistress's mind. Now an expression of anxiety, and even of alarm, would have been detected by such an observer, if acute enough to separate these emotions, in the liveliness of sentiment, from the more vulgar feelings of her companions ; and now, something like gleamings of delight and happiness flashed across her eloquent countenance. The colour came and went often ; and there was an instant, during which the lugger varied her course, hauling to the wind, and then fall ing off again, like a dolphin at its sports, when the radiance of the pleasure that glowed about her soft blue eyes, rendered the girl perfectly beautiful. But none of these passing expressions were noted by the garrulous group around the stranger female, who was left very much to the indulgence of the impulses that gave them birth, unquestioned, and altogether unsuspected.

Although the cluster of girls had, with feminine sensitive ness, gathered a little apart from the general crowd, there were but a few yards between the spot where it stood, and that occupied by 'Maso ; so that when the latter spoke, an attentive listener among the former mi^ht hear his words. This was an office that Tonti did not choose to undertake, however, until he was questioned by the podesta, Vito Viti, wlio now appeared on the hill in person, puffing like a whale that rises to breathe, from the vigour of his ascent.

'* What dost tliou make of her, good 'Maso ?" demanded

LE PEU-FOLLET .

tftcr be h:ul examined the stranger in silt-;: .•; authorized, in virtue of his

ijiiesMuii v- li-nn In* pleased.

•, it is a lugger ;" was the brief, and, certainly, the

•• \ . . •: :'. 3 jprj we all understand that, neighbour Tonti ; but what sort of a lugger ? There are felucca-luggers, and puiaerc-.luggors, tuid bombarda-luggers, and all sorts of lug gers : which sort oflugger i; this ?"

_:m>r I'od-.-siu, this is not the language of tlic port. •all a felucca, a felucca ; u bombarda, a bombarda ; a polacrc, a polacre ; and a lugger, a lugger. This is, therefore, a lugger."

'Maso spoke authoritatively, for he felt that he v a.s now not out of his depth, and it was grateful to him to let the public know how much better he understood all these mat ters than a magistrate. On the other hand, the podesta was !, and disappointed into the bargain, for he really imagined h,: was drawing nice distinctions, much as it was his wont to do in legal proceedings ; and it was his ambition to be thought to know something of every thing.

" Well, Tonti," answered Signnr Vi:i, in a protecting manner, and with an affable smile, "as this is not an affair that is likely to go to the higher courts at Florence, your explanations may be taken as sufficient, and 1 have no wish to disturb them — a lugger, is a lugger."

"Si, Signore; that is just what we say in the port. A r, is a lugger."

•'And yonder strange craft, you maintain, and at need are ready to swear, H a IU.ITJIT • '

Now 'Maso sei-in-^ no n-.-i-.-ssity tor any oath in the aflair, and being always somewhat conscientious in such n. v,-lii'ii« vcr ilic custom-house officers did not hold th<

B little startled at this suggestion, and he to and a IOH-.T !(,(.!; at th" stranger, !

" Si, Signore," he replied, after sati<fying his mind . ;i I »;•/'// ^\\•( ar that the s! r r, is a 1 1

u And canst thou add, honest Tonti, of what nation ? The nation is of as much moment, in these troubled times, as the riff."

10 LETEU-FOLLST.

" You say truly, Signer Podestu ; for if an Algerine. or a Moor, or even a Frenchman, he will be an unwelcome visiter in the Canal of Elba. There arc many different signs about him, that sometimes make me think he belongs to one people, and then to another; and I crave your pardon, if I ask a little leisure, to let him draw nearer, before I give a positive opinion."

As tliis request was reasonable, no objection was raised. The podcsta turned aside, and observing Ghita, who had visited his niece, and of whose intelligence he entertained a favourable opinion, he drew nearer to the girl, determined to lose a moment in dignified trifling.

"Honest 'Maso, poor fellow, is sadly puzzled," he ob* served, smiling benevolently, as if in pity for the pilot's embar rassment ; " he wishes to persuade us that the strange craft yonder is a lugger, though he cannot, himself, say to what country she belongs !"

" It is a lugger, Signore," returned the girl, drawing a long breath, as if relieved by hearing the sound of her own voice.

" How ! dost thou pretend to be so skilled in vessels, as to distinguish these particulars at the distance of a league?"

" I do not think it a league, Signore — not more than half a league; and the distance lessens fast, though the wind is so light. As for knowing a lugger from a felucca, it is as easy as to know a house from a church ; or one of the reverend padri5 in the streets, from a mariner."

" Ay, so I would have told 'Maso on the spot, had the obstinate old fellow been inclined to hear me. The dis tance is just about what you say ; and nothing is easier than to see that the stranger is a lugger. As to the nation ? — "

" That may not be so easily told, Signore, unless the ves sel show us her flag."

" By San Antonio ! thou art right, child ; and it is fitting she should show us her flag. Nothing has a right to ap* proach so near the port of his Imperial and Royal Highness, that docs not show its flag, thereby declaring its "honest purpose, and its nation. My friends, are the guns in the battery loaded, as usual ?"

The answer being in the affirmative, there was a hurried consultation among some of the principal men in the crowd, and then the podesta walked towards the government-house with an important air. In five minutes sold seen

in the batteries, and preparations were made fur levelling an

n-pounder in the direction of the strang'-r. Most of

. and stepped their oars, .ho battery

1-eing within a lumdivd yards of the spot, where tlj«-y stood ;

.iiita, with a face that was pale, certainly, though with

an eye that was sleadv, and without the least indications of

•d herself, isiteu>r!y \\atched every n>.»ve-

ni'-nt. When it was e\id«-nt the artillerists were about to fire, anxiety induced her to break silence.

" They surely \*1\ no! aimri/ lh«; lu^rr!" slie cxclal. u T/iat cannot ho necessary, -"s^iior rodesta, to make the stranger hoist his Hag. Never have I seen that done in the south."

" You arc unacquainted with onr Tuscan bombardiers, Sijunrina," answered the magistrate, with a bland smile, and an Exulting gesture. li It is well for Europe that the grand duchy is so small, since such troops might prove even riore troublesome than the French!"

(Ihita, howevor, j>aid no attention to this touch of provin cial pride, but nr«'.--in;j h'-r Jiands on her heart, she stood

. statue of suspense1, while the men in the batter. cn'ed their duty. In a minute the match was applied, and :. Though all her cooipaniooa 1 invocations to the saints, and other exclamations, an,] some even crouched to the ear! h in terror, Ghita, the most delicate of any, in appearance, and with nn^re real sensibility than all united expressed in her face, stood firm and erect. The flash and the explosion evidently had no effect on her ; not an artillerist among them was less unmoved in frame, at the report, than tins slight girl. She even imitated the manner of the soldiers, by turning to watch the flight of the shot, though si her hands as she did so, and ap-

it the result with trembling. The!' .•<:soon past, when the ball was seen t-

the water fully a quarter of a mile a>vrn of the IUL^'T, and to skip alon.: th<' plarid 968 lor twice that distance further, when it sunk to th<> bottom by its own gra\