Once upon a time there was a bold young fisherman living on the coast of southern Italy. One night, stormy and dark, he found that his father and brothers would not venture out in their tight and strong smack; so he determined, in spite of every remonstrance, to go alone in the little cockle-shell attached to it. It blew a gale, but he rode it out in his tiny buoyant bark, till the sun rose, warm and bright, upon a placid, glassy sea. Overcome by fatigue and heat, he fell asleep; but, after some time, was awakened by a loud shouting at a distance. He looked round and saw the family-boat, the crew of which were crying aloud, and waving their hands to invite him back; but they made no effort to reach him. What could they want? what could they mean? He seized his oars, and began to pull lustily towards them; but he was soon amazed to find that the fishing-boat, towards which he had turned the prow of his skiff, appeared upon his quarter; and soon, though he righted his craft, it was on the opposite side. Evidently he had been making a circle; but the end came within its beginning, in a spiral curve, and now he was commencing another and a narrower one. A horrible suspicion flashed upon his mind: he threw off his tunic and pulled like a madman at his oars. But though he broke the circle a bit here and a bit there, still round he went, and every time nearer to the centre, in which he could see a downward funnel of hissing and foaming water. Then, in despair, he threw down his oars, and standing he flung up his arms frantically; and a sea-bird screaming near, heard him cry out as loud as itself, “Charibdis!”[69] And now the circle his boat went spinning round was only a few times longer than itself, and he cast himself flat down, and shut his ears and eyes with his hands, and held his breath, till he felt the waters gurgling above him, and he was whirled down into the abyss. “I wonder,” Torquatus said to himself, “did any one ever perish in this way? or is it a mere allegory?--if so, of what? Can a person be drawn on gradually in this manner to spiritual destruction? are my present thoughts, by any chance, an outer circle, which has caught me, and----” “Fundi!” exclaimed the muleteer, pointing to a town before them; and presently the mule was sliding along the broad flags of its pavement. Torquatus looked over his letters, and drew one out for the town. He was taken to a little inn of the poorest class, by his guide, who was paid handsomely, and retired swearing and grumbling at the niggardliness of the traveller. He then inquired the way to the house of Cassianus, the school-master, found it, and delivered his letter. He received as kind a welcome as if he had arrived at home; joined his host in a frugal meal, during which he learned the master’s history.