“No, Sir Frederick; not being inquisitive, I hear but little of what is going on in the fleet.  My orders are to report myself and ship to Captain Cuffe, for service, which I have the honor now to do.”

“Well, gentlemen, here are further instructions for you.  This is an order to hold a court, composed of Captain Richard Cuffe, of the Proserpine, president; Captain Sir Frederick Dashwood, Bart., of the Terpsichore, etc., etc.; and Lyon, Winchester, and Spriggs, your first-lieutenant, Sir Frederick, for the trials of Raoul Yvard, a French citizen, on the charge of being a spy, and Ithuel Bolt, seaman, etc., on the charge of being a deserter.  Here is everything in rule, and there are your respective orders, gentlemen.”

“Bless me, I’d no notion of this!” exclaimed Lyon, who was greatly averse to this part of an officer’s duty.  “I’d thought it altogether a trial of speed after a Frenchman, for which purpose the rear-admiral, or my lord, or his grace, whichever it may be right to call him, had seen fit to bring three of his fastest ships together.”

“I wish it was nothing but the last, Captain Lyon; but we have the disagreeable duty of trying a spy and a deserter before us.  You will return to your ships, gentlemen, and follow us in to an anchorage.  I intend to bring up at a single anchor under the shore at Capri, where we can lie during the calm and get through with our courts.  The cases will be clear and not detain us long, and we can send lookouts up on the heights to examine the sea and the coast outside.  In the mean time, we must be busy lest we lose the breeze.  You will attend to the signal for the court.”

At this order the two visitors got into their boats, and the Proserpine again filled.  The three vessels now made the best of their way toward the point of destination, anchoring off the town or village in the island of Capri, just as two bells struck.  Ten minutes later, the Proserpine fired a gun, and ran up the flag which denotes the sitting of a court-martial.

Although it has not been deemed necessary to relate them, the reader will understand that all the details required by the law had been observed as regards these trials; the promptitude of the proceedings being partly characteristic of the decision of the admiral, but more in consequence of a wish to use the charges against the delinquents as a means of seizing the true hero of our tale, the little Feu-Follet.  While a mistaken, not to say a mawkish, philanthropy is unsettling so many of the ancient land-marks of society, and, among other heresies, is preaching the doctrine that “the object of punishment is the reformation of the criminal,” it is a truth which all experience confirms that nothing renders justice so terrible, and consequently so efficient, as its promptitude and certainty.  When all its requirements are observed, the speediest exercise of its functions is the most conducive to the protection