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The felucca was not fifty yards distant when this clamor became the loudest, and the crisis was near. The cheers of the boats on the other side of her proclaimed the quick approach of Griffin and his party; the bows of la Divina Providenza having been laid, in a species of blind haste, directly in a line which would carry her athwart-hawse of le Feu-Follet.
My young friend the novice was delightful only it was so sad to think of the future that is before him. He wanted to know all about England, and when I told him it was an island, clasped his hands and said, "Oh che Providenza!" He told me how the other young men of his own age plagued him as he trudged his rounds high up among the most distant hamlets begging alms for the poor.
"That felucca is the craft which lay near the landing," quietly observed Raoul, who had now come on the forecastle with a view to converse with Ithuel; "her name is la Divina Providenza; she is given to smuggling between Leghorn and Corsica, and is probably bound to the latter at this moment. It is a bold step, too, to stand directly for her port under such circumstances!"
Ithuel observed, too, that in the midst of this confusion and cloud the crew of la Divina Providenza was increasing in numbers instead of diminishing by the combat, four sweeps next being out, each manned by three men, while near twenty more were shortly visible, running to and fro, and shouting to each other in a language that was intended to be Italian, but which sounded much more, in his practised ears, like bastard English.
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.
A very dear picture of "Providenza," poor monks at an empty table and angels bringing bread. 'Angelico's picture of heaven was more to my mind than any I have seen. No stern, avenging God, no silly Madonna, but happy souls playing like children, or singing and piping with devout energy.
But the distance was so great as obviously to render such an experiment bootless; and, after looking in that direction a few minutes, the head of la Divina Providenza was laid off shore, and she made every possible effort to put herself under the cover of the lugger.
Both Winchester, who was in la Divina Providenza, and Griffin, who commanded the boats, played their parts in perfection. They understood too well the character of the wily and practised foe with whom they had to deal, to neglect the smallest of the details of their well-concerted plan.
All this time the sweep of the felucca were plied, the boats advancing at least two feet to the chase's one. La Divina Providenza might now have been three hundred yards from the lugger: and the launch, the nearest of the pursuers, about the same distance astern of the felucca. Ten minutes more would certainly bring the seeming combatants alongside of each other.
"Mes enfans," shouted Raoul "soyez calmes Fire!" The whole of the five guns, loaded heavily with canister, were discharged into the smoke of la Divina Providenza. The shrieks that succeeded sufficiently proclaimed with what effect.
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