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Updated: June 29, 2025
So the Gauntlet sailed for the island of Giraglia; and we two, having watched her for a while as she stood out to make her offing, trod out our camp-fire and turned our faces northward. Marc'antonio's last action before starting was to unhobble the goats and free the hogs from their wooden collars and headpieces.
If annoyed, he hid his annoyance. "O Princess," answered he, "I will own that Corsica has left the Queen, your mother, overlong here in captivity. For reasons of state it was decided to work northward from point to point, clearing the Genoese as we went. We did not reckon that, before we reached Giraglia, an Englishman of genius would step in to anticipate us.
Let me say, sirs, that we heard your fire and saw Giraglia blazing, as far south as Nonza, where we were conducting a far meaner enterprise; and came north in wonder where Corsica had found such friends." "Say rather, sir, where my mother had found them," interposed the Princess, coldly. "Is this curiosity of yours all your business?" The General met her look frankly.
They gazed at us curiously there in the light of the conflagration, and from us away to the burning island, and talked together in whispers, in a patois of which I caught but one word in three. They asked us no questions. Their voices filled the beach with a kind of subdued murmuring, all alike gentle and patiently explanatory. "It is the island of Giraglia," said one to me.
The others had discarded all that was Corsican in their dress, and the Princess had ransacked the quarters of the late garrison on Giraglia to rig us out in odds and ends of Genoese costume. For the rest we trusted to fortune; but an hour before starting I had sought out my Uncle Gervase and made him privy to the plot.
"As for that," said I, "your next rendezvous, I hear, is the island of Giraglia; but, for the whole plan of campaign, you must come and hear it from Billy Priske, who will tell you what my father has done and what he intends."
Last of all we moved to the shore opposite the island of Giraglia; but the Genoese had burnt the village which stood there. Among the ruins we camped, and day after day my master conned the island across the strait, waiting for the time when the Gauntlet should be due.
I told him of the firing we had heard off Nonza. "In my belief," said I, "they are Corsicans that have drawn off from the bombardment, though why I cannot divine, unless it be in curiosity to discover why Giraglia was a-burning last night." "If, on the other hand they be Genoese," answered my uncle, shaking his head, "this is a serious matter for us.
If you meet Marc'antonio upon the road, give him this message for me. 'But where, O Princess, I asked, 'are we to await your pleasure? 'Fare north, if you will, to Cape Corso, she said, 'where that old mad Englishman boasts that he will reach my mother in her prison at Giraglia. He has gone thither alone, refusing help; and you may perhaps be useful to him." Marc'antonio's growl grew deeper.
The Genoese have shut her, I believe, in Nonza, in Cape Corso. "The General frowned a bit at this, but in a moment smiled at him in an open way that was honest too, as any one could see. 'I have later news of the Queen Emilia, said he; 'which is that the Genoese have removed her to the island of Giraglia, off Cape Corso. I fear, sir, you will not reach her this side of Doomsday.
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