"When the moon sets, the current will begin to run northward," said the experienced little mid; "and we shall have a capital chance of being sucked into the Calofaro, or stranded on Punta Secca. Would to God, we saw the frigate!" As he spoke, a large vessel passed across the bright face of that magnificent moon, which shed a long line of silver light across the troubled water, brightening the summits of the waves as they rose successively from the dark bosom of the sea. The effect was beautiful, as the vessel passed on the rolling surge, and heaving gracefully, slid away into obscurity. "A large frigate on the starboard tack," said the midshipman, as she disappeared: "she is five miles off." "That’s the _Amphion_, your honour," said Tom Taut; "I know her as well as the old _Polly Femus_." "Are you sure?" I asked with anxiety. "Sure?" replied Tom, energetically spitting his quid to leeward; "I know her in a moment, by the rake of her spars. Her mizen top-sail aback—her courses shivering: I know her better than any ship on the station, except the darling old _Polly_. Bill Hoste is creeping along shore, after some of these gun-boats the _Delight_ let slip so easily." "If I judge rightly, we must be somewhere off Palmi." "Hark!" said the midshipman, and the roar of billows rolling on the shore confirmed my supposition. "Breakers ahead!" cried the man at the bow, and we beheld a long white frothy line, glimmering through the gloom; and above it towered the dark outline of a lofty coast. The current shot us among the surf; which boiled around us as white as if we were amid the terrors of Charybdis. A little cove, where the waves rolled gently up the sandy slope, invited us to enter; the boat ran in, and we were immediately in the smooth water of a little harbour, where the dark wild woods overhung the rocks at its entrance, and all around it on every side. Here we hoped to remain unseen, till daylight revealed our "whereabouts," as the middy had it. For a time we kept the oars in the rowlocks, ready to retire on a moment’s notice; but finding that not a sound, save the dashing sea, woke the echoes of that lonely place, I volunteered to land and make a reconnoissance; desiring the midshipman to pull southward, along the shore, in case of any alarm, that I might be picked up at some other point. Belting my sabre tighter, I threw aside my cloak, and sprang ashore. On walking a little way forward, through the wood, I found the country open, and saw lights at a distance; which I conjectured to be those of Palmi or Seminara, where Regnier had concentrated a strong body of troops.