"Never! Broken in spirit—degraded as I am—this naked body—these scars: away, leave me to my misery! leave me! These poor men, at least, will not shrink from—adieu! Signor Dundas—adieu! Frà Maso—shove off!"
Before descending into the boat, I was compelled to deliver up my watch and purse: my sabre-tache was searched, but returned to me when found to contain only military letters and papers. I should probably have been deprived of my epaulettes, but as they were my fighting pair, they had become so tarnished by smoke and weather, that the searchers allowed them to pass unnoticed.
Gaspare Truffi had now succeeded poor little Guevarra in command of "His Majesty's Galley," as the reward of his strength and cunning. He was seated in Madonna's niche, on the poop, kicking his heels, swinging his long arms like the sails of a mill, shrieking, swearing, and drinking from a flask of lacrima, by turns. About twenty sweeps were manned; but the greater number of slaves were busy, rummaging every lockfast place in search of plunder.
The night was black and stormy: not a star was visible, and the dark outline of the land rose up high and gloomily above us. We heard the boom of the white breakers, as they rolled on the rocky and silent shore; and their echoes mingled with the dash of the long sweeps, as the galley was pulled away and disappeared in the obscurity around us.
When again I met the Signor Gismondo, it was under very different circumstances: more fortunate than myself, he reached Crotona next day, and was protected by the Duke di Bagnara; who gave him a command in his battalion of the Free Calabri.
We were soon amidst the surf; and as the boat shipped sea after sea, we were quickly drenched to the skin. While I sat shivering in the stern sheets, the four rescued slaves pulled on in silence, and with all their strength; lifting the light shallop out of the water at every stroke, in their eagerness to tread on earth once more. How joyously and strongly they seemed to stretch their now unfettered limbs! Having the tiller ropes, I steered the boat towards a piece of sandy beach which we discerned through the gloom; and, not without fear of crashing on some concealed rock, I saw its head shoot into a narrow creek, between two jutting crags, against which the eastern current of the Ionian sea was running in mountains of angry foam. In consequence of the boat's headway, the fury with which she was pulled, and the strength of the current, she was run up high and dry on the beach, with a concussion that nearly tossed us all out on the sand. The rowers leaped up with a triumphant shout of "Buon viaggio, Signor Inglese!" and springing away towards the hills, left me to my own reflections.
Behold me, then, in a most desolate condition: landed at midnight on the sea-shore, in a remote part of Calabria—the lawless land of robbery and outrage—then "the terra incognita of Europe"—minus my valise and purse, and without a guide. The rogues had stripped me of everything, save Bianca's dear little ring; the diamond of which my thick leathern glove had concealed from their prying eyes.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE THREE CANDLE-ENDS.
For some time I sat by the sea-shore, reflecting on what course to pursue; until the increased howling of the wind, the roar of the surf, and a drop or two of rain splashing on my face, announced that a rough morning was coming on. Not knowing whom I might encounter, I regretted the want of my pistols. Stumbling landward from the rocky beach, I succeeded in discovering a rude flight of steps, hewn in the basaltic rocks which faced the sea; but so obscure was all around, that on gaining the summit I knew not whether the dark chaotic masses before me were a bank of clouds or the termination of the long chain of the Apennines.