the
boat round to the wind. Nonsense the whole. By that time Euroclydon was
on us, so that I would never have tried to put her about if we had had
the best gear I ever handled, and our experiments only succeeded far
enough to show that we were as utterly powerless as men could be.
Meanwhile day was just beginning to break. I soothed the old man with
such devout expressions as heretic might venture. I tried to turn him
from the coming evil to the present necessity. I counselled with him
whether it might not be safer to take in sail and drift along. But from
this he dissented. Time enough to take in sail when we knew what shore
we were coming to. He had no kedge or grapple or cord, indeed, that
would pretend to hold this boat against this gale. We would beach her,
if it pleased the Virgin; and if we could not,--shaking his head,--why,
that would please the Virgin, too.

And so Euroclydon hurried us on to Sybaris.

The sun rose, O how magnificently! Is there anywhere to see sunrise like
the Mediterranean? And if one may not be on the top of Katahdin, is
there any place for sunrise like the very level of the sea? Already the
Calabrian mountains of our western horizon were gray against the sky.
One or another of us was forward all the time, trying to make out by
what slopes the hills descended to the sea. Was it cliff of basalt, or
was it reedy swamp, that was to receive us. I insisted at last on his
reducing sail. For I felt sure that he was driving on under a sort of
fatality which made him dare the worst. I was wholly right, for the boat
now rose easier on the water, and was much more dry.

Perhaps the wind flagged a little as the sun rose. At all events, he
took courage, which I had never lost. I made his boy find us some
oranges. I made them laugh by eating their cold polenta with them. I
even made him confess, when I called him aft and sent Battista forward,
that the shore we were nearing looked low. For we were near enough now
to see stone pines and chestnut-trees. Did anybody see the towers of
Sybaris?

Not a tower! But, on the other hand, not a gnome, witch, Norna's Head,
or other intimation of the underworld. The shore looked like many other
Italian shores. It looked not very unlike what we Yankees call
salt-marsh. At all events, we should not break our heads against a wall!
Nor will I draw out the story of our anxieties, varying as the waves
did on which we rose and fell so easily. As she forged on, it was cle