“Confine your answers, witness, to the purport of the question,” put in Cuffe, with dignity.

Ithuel stood too much in habitual awe of the captain of his old ship to venture on an answer; but if looks could have done harm, that important functionary would not have escaped altogether uninjured.  As he said nothing, the examination proceeded.

“You know him to be Raoul Yvard, the commander of the French privateer lugger, le Feu-Follet?” continued the Judge Advocate, deeming it prurient to fortify his record of the prisoner’s confession of identity with a little collateral evidence.

“Why—­I some think”—­answered Ithuel, with a peculiar provincialism, that had a good deal of granite in it—­“that is, I kind o’ conclude”—­catching an assent from Raoul’s eye—­“oh! yes—­of that there isn’t the smallest mite of doubt in the world.  He’s the captain of the lugger, and a right down good one he is!”

“You were with him in disguise when he came, into the Bay of Naples yesterday?”

“I in disguise, ’squire!—­What have I got to disguise?  I am an American of different callings, all of which I practyse as convenience demands; being a neutral, I’ve no need of disguises to go anywhere.  I am never disguised except when my jib is a little bowsed out; and that, you know, is a come-over that befals most seafaring men at times.”

“You need answer nothing concerning yourself that will tend to criminate you.  Do you know with what inducement, or on what business, Raoul Yvard came into the Bay of Naples yesterday?”

“To own to you the candid truth, ’squire, I do not,” answered Ithuel, simply; for the nature of the tie which bound the young Frenchman so closely to Ghita was a profound mystery, in all that related to its more sacred feelings, to a being generally so obtuse on matters of pure sentiment.

“Captain Rule is a good deal given to prying about on the coast; and what particular eend he had in view in this expedition I cannot tell you.  His a’r’n’ds in shore, I must own, be sometimes onaccountable!—­Witness the island of Elby, gentlemen.”

Ithuel indulged in a small laugh as he made this allusion; for, in his own way, he had a humor in which he occasionally indulged, after a manner that belonged to the class of which he was a conspicuous member.

“Never mind what occurred at Elba.  Prisoner, do you wish to question the witness?”

“Etuelle,” asked Raoul, “do you not know that I love Ghita Caraccioli?”

“Why, Captain Rule, I know you think so and say so—­but I set down all these matters as somewhat various and onaccountable.”

“Have I not often landed on the enemy’s coast solely to see her and to be near her?”

By this time Ithuel, who was a little puzzled at first to understand what it all meant, had got his cue, and no witness could have acquitted himself better than he did from that moment.