and saw nothing but clouds and sea and a chest
floating on the waves, which bytimes, to his sore affright, drew nigh
unto him, for that he feared lest peradventure it should dash against
him on such wise as to do him a mischief; wherefore, as often as it
came near him, he put it away from him as best he might with his hand,
albeit he had little strength thereof. But presently there issued a
sudden flaw of wind out of the air and falling on the sea, smote upon
the chest and drove it with such violence against Landolfo's plank
that the latter was overset and he himself perforce went under water.
However, he struck out and rising to the surface, aided more by fear
than by strength, saw the plank far removed from him, wherefore,
fearing he might be unable to reach it again, he made for the chest,
which was pretty near him, and laying himself flat with his breast on
the lid thereof, guided it with his arms as best he might.[93]

[Footnote 93: It seems doubtful whether _la reggeva diritta_ should
not rather be rendered "kept it upright." Boccaccio has a knack, very
trying to the translator, of constantly using words in an obscure or
strained sense.]

On this wise, tossed about by the sea now hither and now thither,
without eating, as one indeed who had not the wherewithal, but
drinking more than he could have wished, he abode all that day and the
ensuing night, unknowing where he was and descrying nought but sea;
but, on the following day, whether it was God's pleasure or stress of
wind that wrought it, he came, grown well nigh a sponge and clinging
fast with both hands to the marges of the chest, even as we see those
do who are like to drown, to the coast of the island of Corfu, where a
poor woman chanced to be scouring her pots and pans and making them
bright with sand and salt water. Seeing Landolfo draw near and
discerning in him no [human] shape, she drew back, affrighted and
crying out. He could not speak and scarce saw, wherefore he said
nothing; but presently, the sea carrying him landward, the woman
descried the shape of the chest and looking straitlier, perceived
first the arms outspread upon it and then the face and guessed it for
that which it was.

Accordingly, moved with compassion, she entered somedele into the sea,
which was now calm, and seizing Landolfo by the hair, dragged him
ashore, chest and all. There having with difficulty unclasped his
hands from the chest, she set the latter on the head of a young