The _Santelmo_, as she was named, was a smart little schooner, with a lofty tapering mainmast; she was broad in the beam, but sharp at the bows, where an image of her saintly patron spread his arms above the deep. Her well-scrubbed decks were flush and white; while the brass plates on her four carronades, her binnacle-lamps, and the copper on her sides, were all polished and shone like burnished gold. She was gaudily painted, and straight as a lance from stem to stern. With all her snowy canvass set, we ran along the coast, favoured by the land-breeze, and soon saw the lights of Gierazzo and the Locrian temples of Palepoli vanish behind us in the dusk. Upon a wind the _Santelmo_ sailed admirably, and midnight saw us far beyond the Capo Stilo; but the breeze had increased so much that, notwithstanding his intense faith in the candle-ends, Maltei was obliged to take in sail. Still more tough grew the gale; the night became darker: the high outline of the Calabrian hills could be discerned no more, and the breaking sea was covered with white foam. The miraculous candles had been lighted in the binnacle with great formality, by the cabin-boy on his bare knees; imploring, at the same time, in the names of St. Elmo and St. John of Malta, a peaceful night for the master and crew. The blessed candles burned and sputtered merrily; the bushy-whiskered and grim-visaged timoniere hitched up his cotton breeches, twitched down the net which confined his long black hair. and grasped the helm in confident silence. But harder blew the wind: it roared through the rigging, and the _Santelmo_ was soon flying through the rolling sea, stripped of half her canvass. The mate slung himself from the spritsail yard; and, when endeavouring to place a candle in the hand of the image on the cutwater, dropped overboard, and (poor fellow!) was seen no more. The sailors now became excited. "Clew up the fore-topsail—in with the forestaysail! Saints and devils! be quick, will you!" yelled Maltei, through his speaking-trumpet. "Close reef the foresail, and take in everything else fore and aft. Per Baccho!—Our blessed Lady!—Devil in hell! Look sharp, will ye!—Quick, there, or I will shoot the last man off the deck. Away, aloft, while ye can get out on the yard!" But not a man would venture, and Maltei might as well have roared to the wind. "Corpo! you blundering asses, let all go by the sheets, then. Apostles and angels! Quick, cowards!—let fly, or the masts will go by the board." The order was obeyed: the cordage rattled, the blocks shrieked; the canvass flew to leeward, split to ribbons, which crackled and lashed the rigging, as they flapped on the furious wind: but we escaped a capsize, and the schooner skimmed along under her close-reefed foresail; while Maltei took the tiller and strove to keep her to her course, swearing and praying by turns.