At that moment--as in any sea often happens, if you come out from the more land-locked channel into the larger body of water--the wind appeared to change. Really, I suppose, we came into the steady southwest wind which had probably been drawing all day up toward the Adriatic. In two hours more we made the lighthouse of Stilo, and I was then tired enough to crawl down into the fearfully smelling little cuddy, and, wrapping Battista's heavy storm-jacket round my feet, I caught some sort of sleep. But not for very long. I struck my watch at three in the morning. And the air was so unworthy of that name,--it was such a thick paste, seeming to me more like a mixture of tar and oil and fresh fish and decayed fish and bilge-water than air itself,--that I voted three morning, and crawled up into the clear starlight,--how wonderful it was, and the fresh wet breeze that washed my face so cheerily!--and I bade Battista take his turn below, while I would lie there and mind the helm. If--if he had done what I proposed, I suppose I should not be writing these lines; but his father, good fellow, said: "No, signor, not yet. We leave the shore now for the broad bay, you see; and if the wind haul southward, we may need to go on the other tack. We will all stay here, till we see what the deep-sea wind may be." So we lay there, humming, singing, and telling stories, still this rampant southwest wind behind, as if all the powers of the Mediterranean meant to favor my mission to Gallipoli. The boat was now running straight before it. We stretched out bravely into the gulf; but, before the wind, it was astonishing how easily the lugger ran. He said to me at last, however, that on that course we were running to leeward of our object; but that it was the best point for his boat, and if the wind held, he would keep on so an hour longer, and trust to the land breeze in the morning to run down the opposite shore of the bay.