The zephyr had come at the usual hour, but it was light, and the ship was so close to the mountains as to feel very little of its force.  It was different with the two other vessels.  Lyon had gone about in time to get clear of the highest mountains, and his lofty sails took enough of the breeze to carry him out to sea, three or four hours before; while, the Terpsichore, under Sir Frederick Dashwood, had never got near enough in with the land to be becalmed at all.  Her head had been laid to the southwest, at the first appearance of the afternoon wind; and that frigate was now hull-down to seaward—­actually making a free wind of it, as she shaped her course up between Ischia and Capri.  As for the Proserpine, when the bell struck three in the first dog-watch, she was just abeam of the celebrated little islets of the Sirens, the western breeze now beginning to die away, though, getting more of it, the ship was drawing ahead faster than she had been since the turn of the day.

Three bells in the first dog-watch indicate the hour of half-past five.  At that season of the year, the sun sets a few minutes past six.  Of course there remained but little more than half an hour, in which to execute the sentence of the law.  Cuffe had never quitted the deck, and he actually started when he heard the first sound of the clapper.  Winchester turned toward him, with an inquiring look; for everything had been previously arranged between them; he received merely a significant gesture in return.  This, however, was sufficient.  Certain orders were privately issued.  Then there appeared a stir among the foretop-men and on the forecastle, where a rope was rove at the fore-yard-arm, and a grating was rigged for a platform—­unerring signs of the approaching execution.

Accustomed as these hardy mariners were to brave dangers of all sorts, and to witness human suffering of nearly every degree, a feeling of singular humanity had come over the whole crew.  Raoul was their enemy, it is true, and he had been sincerely detested by all hands, eight-and-forty hours before; but circumstances had entirely changed the ancient animosity into a more generous and manly sentiment.  In the first place, a successful and a triumphant enemy was an object very different from a man in their own power, and who lay entirely at their mercy.  Then the personal appearance of the young privateersman was unusually attractive, and altogether different from what it had been previously represented, and that, too, by an active rivalry that was not altogether free from bitterness.  But chiefly was the generous sentiment awakened by the conviction that the master-passion, and none of the usual inducements of a spy, had brought their enemy into this strait; and though clearly guilty in a technical point of view, that be was influenced by no pitiful wages, even allowing that he blended with the pursuit of his love some of the motives of his ordinary warfare.  All these considerations, coupled with the reluctance that seamen ever feel to having an execution in their ship, had entirely turned the tables; and there, where Raoul would have found so lately between two and three hundred active and formidable enemies, he might almost be said now to have as many sympathizing friends.