The Children of the King

The Children of the King

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Children of the King, by F. Marion
Crawford
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Title: The Children of the King
Author: F. Marion Crawford
Release Date: February 26, 2005 [eBook #15187]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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CHILDREN OF THE KING***
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THE CHILDREN OF THE KING
A Tale of Southern Italy
by
F. MARION CRAWFORD
With Frontispiece
P. F. Collier & Son New York By MacMillan & Co.
1885

[Illustration: AN OLD BAREFOOTED FRIAR STOOD BESIDE
HER.--Children of the King.]

Dedication
TO THE MIDDY, THE LADDIE, THE MATE AND THE MEN THE

SKIPPER OF THE OLD LEONE DEDICATES THIS STORY

CHAPTER I.
Lay your course south-east half east from the Campanella. If the
weather is what it should be in late summer you will have a fresh
breeze on the starboard quarter from ten in the morning till four or five
o'clock in the afternoon. Sail straight across the wide gulf of Salerno,
and when you are over give the Licosa Point a wide berth, for the water
is shallow and there are reefs along shore. Moreover there is no light on
Licosa Point, and many a good ship has gone to pieces there in dark
winter nights when the surf is rolling in. If the wind holds you may run
on to Palinuro in a long day before the evening calm comes on, and the
water turns oily and full of pink and green and violet streaks, and the
sun settles down in the north-west. Then the big sails will hang like
curtains from the long slanting yards, the slack sheets will dip down to
the water, the rudder will knock softly against the stern-post as the
gentle swell subsides. Then all is of a golden orange colour, then red as
wine, then purple as grapes, then violet, then grey, then altogether
shadowy as the stars come out--unless it chances that the moon is not
yet full, and edges everything with silver on your left hand while the
sunset dyes fade slowly to darkness upon your right.
Then the men forward will bestir themselves and presently a red glow
rises and flickers and paints what it touches, with its own colours. The
dry wood crackles and flares on the brick and mortar hearth, and the
great kettle is put on. Presently the water boils--in go the long bundles
of fine-drawn paste, and everybody collects forward to watch the
important operation. Stir it quickly at first. Let it boil till a bit of it is
tender under the teeth. In with the coarse salt, and stir again. Up with
kettle. Chill it with a quart of cold water from the keg. A hand with the
colander and one with the wooden spoon while the milky boiling water
is drained off. Garlic and oil, or tomato preserve? Whichever it is, be
quick about it. And so to supper, with huge hard biscuit and stony
cheese, and the full wine jug passed from mouth to mouth. To every
man a fork and to every man his place within arm's length of the great
basin--mottled green and white within, red brown and unglazed on the

outside. But the man at the helm has an earthen plate, and the jug is
passed aft to him from time to time.
Not that he has much to do as he lies there on his six-foot deck that
narrows away so sharply to the stern. He has taken a hitch round the
heavy tiller with the slack of the main sheet to keep it off the side of his
head while he eats. There is no current, and there is not a breath of air.
By and by, before midnight, you will smell the soft land breeze
blowing in puffs out of every little bay and indentation. There is no
order needed. The men silently brace the yards and change the sheets
over. The small jib is already bent in place of the big one, for the night
is dark and some of those smart puffs will soon be like little squalls.
Full and by. Hug the land, for there are no more reefs before Scalea. If
you do not get aground on what you can see in Calabria, you will not
get aground at all, says the old proverb. Briskly over two or three miles
to the next point,