I coloured at the inuendo, while the old fellow laughed at what he considered a hit, and held the decanter of glowing Zante between him and the sunlight. He shook me heartily by the hand, and, buckling up the despatches in my sabre-tache, I hurried back to my billet to desire my servant to pack my valise, and have all in order for starting by daybreak.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAVALLO MARINO.
The report of the morning gun had scarcely pealed away from the ramparts ere Brown appeared by my bedside, and the reveillé rang through the echoing stillness of the castle above me. In barracks there are few sensations more agreeable than that of being awakened by the reveillé on the dawn of a summer's day: gradually its sweet low wail steals upon the waking senses, sadly and slowly at first, then increasing in strength and power till the full body of music floats through the morning air, redoubled by the echoes of the empty barrack-courts; when as the measure from the slowness of a Scottish lament increases to the rapidity of a reel, the drams roll impatiently as if to rouse the tardy sleepers.
"Well, Bob, what kind of morning is it?" said I, scrambling up, shivering and yawning.
"Cold and raw, sir—the drums sound as if muffled, a sure sign of a damp morning. The galley's boat is at the castle stairs, sir."
It was chilly and dark daybreak: the ramparts of Scylla looked black and wet; the sentinels buttoned up in their dark great-coats kept close within turret and box; a thick fog floated on the surface of the sea, and rolled in eddying volumes around the caverned rock and the hills of Milia. With Bob's assistance I soon donned my tight leather breeches and jack-boots, and shaved hurriedly by candle-light, using the case of my watch in lieu of a dressing-glass. It was a morning of that kind when it requires all one's resolution to leave a comfortable bed, and turn out in five minutes, to face a drizzly fog and cold sea-breeze: so tightening my waist-belt, I threw my cloak round me, bade a hasty adieu to my kind Padrona and her dishes of polenta, and sallied forth.
The boat awaited me at the sea stair-case, a flight of steps hewn in the solid rock, and descending from the castle to the water, which was rolling in snowy foam on those at the bottom, I threw my portmanteau on board, and leaped after it. Brown saluted and bade me adieu, while I warned him, on peril of his head, to attend to Cartouche and see him duly fed and watered, as I used to do myself.
The boat was shoved off, and we shot away into the mist from the lofty rock of Scylla; which, with its castled summit, loomed like some tall giant through the flying vapour. The oars dipped and rose from the wave in measured time, while the boatmen chanted and sang of the glories of Massaniello the fisherman of Amalfi, and of the mad friar Campanello, who led the Calabrian revolters in 1590.
In the pauses of their chorus, I could hear the boom of the waves in the hollow caverns, sending forth sounds like the howling of dogs and the roaring of Scylla's ravening wolves, who abode among darkness and misery, and rendered the spot so terrible to the ancient mariner: but the noise died away as the distance increased. The fog arose from the face of the waters, the rising sun began to gild the summits of the Sicilian and Italian hills, and I beheld the war-galley lying, like a many-legged monster, on the bosom of the brightening deep. We steered alongside, the oars were laid in, and the side-ropes and ladder were lowered into the boat; which two sailors held steady, at stem and stern, by means of hooks. The galley was named the Cavallo Marino, and a gigantic sea-horse reared up at her prow: the same emblem appeared carved upon her quarters, and the name was painted, in large red letters, on the broad white blade of every sweep. She was a high vessel, pulled by fifty oars, each of them at least forty feet long and worked by five miserable slaves, half naked: they were chained by the wrists to the oar, or else fastened to their seats; between which there ran, fore and aft, a long plank or gangway, where the boatswain or taskmaster walked about, applying his lash on the bare shoulders of those unhappy wretches who did not exert themselves sufficiently.