The sailors of the Cavallo Marino, about fifteen in number, were stationed forward; she was armed with a large thirty-two pound forecastle-piece, and manned by two hundred and fifty slaves, the dregs of the prisons and dungeons of Naples and Sicily: assassins, bandits, runaway priests, and villains of all descriptions, steeped in guilt of every imaginable kind. She had a captain, two lieutenants, and a few petty officers, who wore the government uniform: they were grouped on her lofty poop when I ascended on board. I was received, according to the custom of that service, by a cheer from the slaves: but, alas! such a cheer! It was more like a yell from the regions of darkness; for the boatswain and his mates used their rattans unsparingly, to increase the joy of my arrival. Many a bitter malediction was growled by the Italians, whose eyes gleamed like those of coiled-up snakes; many a pious cry to God broke from the swarthy Algerines, who were there doing penance for the slavery to which their countrymen subjected those unhappy Christians who, by conquest or shipwreck, fell under their horrible dominion. A Moor of Barbary, or a corsair of Algeria, formed the fifth slave at every sweep. The poop was armed with a few brass swivel guns; and the standard, having the arms of Sicily quartered with those of Naples, was displayed from a tall staff rigged aft, and hung drooping in deep folds over the water, which it swept at times, when agitated by the morning breeze.
The officers were the only men on board who wore their side-arms: the slaves were all too securely chained to be dreaded; notwithstanding their number.
By the captain, Guevarra, a pompous little Sicilian, I was formally welcomed on board "His Majesty's galley, Sea-Horse" (a phrase he was very fond of repeating), and invited to breakfast with the officers in their little den under the poop. Here we were often in darkness, as the long folds of the standard obscured the windows; but when the wind wafted it aside, the full radiance of the rising sun glared in through the openings, on the light blue uniforms, silver epaulettes, and weather-beaten visages of my entertainers; on the glass cups of smoking coffee and thick chocolate, a savoury ham, with piles of eggs, pyramids of bread, and all the appurtenances of the breakfast table.
"Per Baccho!" said the captain—who, though a little man, was armed with a prodigious sabre, and wore a most extravagant pair of moustachios—"per Baccho! signor," he continued, with a most bland Sicilian smile, "it would have been a particular favour had the general sent you off to us last night: by this time we should have doubled Spartivento; and, as there is some word of a French line-of-battle ship being up the Gulf of Tarento, his valour who commands the Amphion will be impatient to be joined by his Majesty's galley Sea-Horse.—Lieutenant, I'll trouble you for the maccaroons.—We shall have some rough weather before evening, and these double-banked galleys ship every sea that strikes them.—The muffins? with pleasure, signor.—And, truly, one is safer anchored close by the Tower of the Lantern, than exposed to a lee shore and all the damnable currents that run round Spartivento in the evening. But, believe me, signor, that his Majesty's galley Sea-Horse—Boy! pass the word for more coffee."
"Si Signor Capitano," replied a little olive-cheeked urchin in shirt and trousers, who vanished with the silver coffee-pot.
"Considering the beauty of the morning, and the unclouded splendour of the sun, I trust," said I, "with all due submission to your better judgment, that you may prove a false prophet."
"Impossible, signor!" replied the Sicilian; who was doing ample justice to all the good things before him. "I have sailed in—an egg, thank you—in his Majesty's galleys, for forty years, and know every shoal, current, rock and sign of the Italian seas, better than the boasted Palinurus of old—Better? said I. Bah! I hold him to be an arrant blockhead, and no seaman, to resign his helm to Signor Morpheus; whose 'Stygian dew' I believe to have been a big-bellied flask of most potent Gioja or French brandy."
"But Palinurus was an accursed heathen, like his master, misnamed the 'pious Æneas;' and having no saint to patronize him, could expect nothing else than mishaps," said one of the lieutenants.
"Right, Vinoni," replied the captain; "but we, sailors of his Majesty of Sicily, are the Madonna's peculiar care. Faugh! a tarantella in the cream-pot and fire-flies in the marmalade. Yes, Signor Dundas," he continued, resuming his former theme, "there is a regular hurricane gathering; though from what point I cannot quite determine. Last night the yellow moon rose above the Calabrian hills, surrounded by a luminous halo; a sure sign of a tough gale, which Madonna avert: what is worse, we may have it in our teeth, blowing right a-head, before we round yonder Capo del Armi. On our voyage from Palermo, yesterday, as we passed through the Lipari Isles, they were covered by a white vapour; a sure sign of a north-east wind: but though the shore lies on our lee, his Majesty's galley can always use her sweeps, and give it a wide berth."
"But did you not remark, signor," said Vinoni, "that before we came in sight of the Pharo, the mist had floated away from the Lipari, and the mouth of Stromboli threw clear flames across the sky, whilst the waves smoked and growled with a remarkable noise? all sure tokens of a land breeze."