make all
snug and ship-shape, and make fast the blade of an oar to one of the
forward tholes, with the loom on the ground, for a ladder. You are safe
in Calabria.

To-morrow at early dawn you must go into the hills, for you cannot sell
a tenth of your cargo in the little village. Away you trudge on foot,
across the rocky point, along the low flat beach by the cane brake, up
the bed of the rivulet, where the wet green blades of the canes brush
your face at every step. Shoes and stockings in hand you ford the
shallow river, then, shod again, you begin the long ascent. You will
need four good hours, or five, for you are not a landsman, your shoes
hurt you, and you would rather reef top-sails--aye, and take the lee
earing, too, in any gale and a score of times, than breast that
mountain. It cannot be helped. It is a hard life, though there are lazy
days in the summer months, when the wind will do your work for you. You
must live, and earn your share; though they call you the master, neither
boat nor cargo are yours, and you have to earn that share by harder work
and with greater anxiety than the rest. But the world is green to-day.
You remember a certain night last March--off Cape Orso in the gulf, when
the wind they call the Punti di Salerno was raging down and you had a
jib bent for a mainsail, and your foresail close reefed and were
shipping more green water than you like to think of. Pitch dark, too,
and the little lighthouse on the cape not doing its best, as it seemed.
The long line of the Salerno lights on the weather bow. No getting
there, either, and no getting anywhere else apparently. Then you tried
your luck. Amalfi might not be blowing. It was no joke to go about just
then, but you managed it somehow, because you had half a dozen brave
fellows with you. As she came up she was near missing stays and you sang
out to let go the main halyards. The yard came down close by your head
and nearly killed you, but she paid-off all right and went over on the
starboard tack. Just under the cape the water was smooth. Just beyond it
the devil was loose with all his angels, for Amalfi was blowing its own
little hurricane on its own account from another quarter. Nothing for it
but to go about and try Salerno again. What could you do in an open
felucca with the green water running over? You did your best. Five hours
out of that pitch black night you beat up, first trying one harbour and
then the other. Amalfi gave in first, jus