reeze will come up before long and save you the trouble. But the sea is
white and motionless. Far in the offing a Sicilian schooner and a couple
of clumsy "martinganes"--there is no proper English name for the
craft--are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the
felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy
horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces
her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten
in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift
your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its
lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent
shade and its ancient spring. The wind is south by west at first, but it
will go round in an hour or two, and before noon you will make
Scalea--stand out for the reef, the only one in Calabria--with a stern
breeze. You have passed the most beautiful spot on the beautiful Italian
coast, without seeing it. There, between the island of Dino and the cape
lies San Nicola, with its grand deserted tower, its mighty cliffs, its
deep, safe bay and its velvet sand. What matter? The wind is fair and
you are for Calabria with twenty tons of macaroni from Amalfi. There is
no time to be lost, either, for you will probably come home in ballast.
Past Scalea, then, where tradition says that Judas Iscariot was born and
bred and did his first murder. Right ahead is the sharp point of the
Diamante, beyond that low shore where the cane brake grows to within
fifty yards of the sea. Now you have run past the little cape, and are
abreast of the beach. Down mainsail--down jib--down foresail. Let go the
anchor while she forges, eight to nine lengths from the land, and let
her swing round, stern to the sand. Clear away the dingy and launch her
from amidships, and send a line ashore. Overboard with everything now,
for beaching, capstan, chocks and all--the swell will wash them in. As
the keel grates on the pebbles, the men jump into the water from the
high stern and catch the drifting wood. Some plant the capstan, others
pass the long hemp cable and reeve it through the fiddle block. A hand
forward to slack out the cable as the heavy boat slowly creeps up out of
the water. The men from other craft, already beached, lend a hand too
and a score of stout fellows breast the long oars which serve for
capstan bars. A little higher still. Now prop her securely and