A strong breeze had been blowing from the south-west all day, and the sea ran with such fury through the Straits that no boat could come off until after sunset, when there was a lull. Immediately, on being informed that a boat had arrived at the sea staircase, I buckled on my sabre, threw my cloak round me, and hurried off, intending to return before the ever-anxious Bianca had discovered my absence. How vain were my anticipations! The long _fetch_ of the sea running from Syracuse rolled the breakers with great fury on the castle rock, and the boat was tossed about like a cork among the foaming surf that seethed and hissed around us. As the oars dipped in the water and she shot away, I seated myself in the stern-sheets, beside the little middy who held the tiller-ropes. The frigate lay nearly a mile to the southward, and there was such a tremendous current against us that the six oarsmen, though straining every nerve and sinew, found it impossible to make head against it. "I wish we may make the frigate to-night, sir," said the midshipman, looking anxiously at the clouds: "there’s a squall coming from the south-south-east, and these Straits are an awkward place to be caught by one. What do you think, Tom Taut?" "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."