"Think, sir? why that we'll have a dirty night," replied the sailor whom he addressed: a grim, brown, and brawny tar. "When I sailed in the Polly Femus, 74, we had just such a night as this off Scylla, and I won't be in a hurry forgetting it!"
It was now past sunset, in the month of February, and the darkness of the louring sky increased rapidly. Through the thin mist floating over the surface of the water, the frigate loomed large; but when the rising wind cleared it away, we found the distance increasing between us: the strong current was carrying us, at the rate of five knots an hour, towards the terrible rock we had just left; which rose from the water like a black gigantic tower, and seemed ever to be close by, frowning its terrors upon us. Dense banks of vapour soon shrouded the land and hid the frigate: it grew so dark that we knew not which way to steer. The seamen still continued to pull fruitlessly; for we made so much sternway that I expected to find the frail craft momently stranded on the rocky beach.
"We shall never reach the frigate to-night, unless she fills and makes a stretch towards us," said the middy. "This current will not change till daylight, and the Lord knows when the wind will chop about. It has been blowing from Syracuse ever since the poor little Delight was driven on the rocks yonder."
"You cannot fetch Scylla, I suppose."
"Lord, no, sir! we must give it a wide berth: the breakers will be running against it in mountains just now. We must put up the helm and run with the wind and tide, to avoid swamping; and if we escape being sucked into Charybdis on the westward, or beached under the cliffs of Palmi to the northward, we may consider ourselves lucky dogs."
"But we may be thrown upon a part of the coast occupied by the enemy."
"Better that than go to old Davy, sir," said the grey-haired bow-oarsman, "as I nearly did when the Polly Femus, 74, came through these same Straits of Messina."
"When?" said I. "Lately?"
"Lord love you, no, sir—why 't was in the year one."
"One?"