The black
tufa cliffs crested with shattered masonry--the foundations of the sty
where the Boar of Capreae wallowed--were just on our starboard quarter,
when Riddell, the master, came up to Livingstone. "I think we'd better
make all snug, sir," he said. "There's dirty weather to windward, and we
haven't too much sea-room." He was an old man-of-war's boatswain, and
had had a tussle, in his time, on every sea and ocean in the known
world, with every wind that blows. He had rather a contempt for the
Mediterranean, esteeming it just one degree above the Cowes Roads, and
attaching about as much importance to its vagaries as one might do to
the fractiousness of a spoiled child. If he had been caught in the most
terrible tempest that ever desolated the shores of the Great Lake, I
don't believe he would have called it any thing but "dirty weather." He
was too good a sailor, though, not to take all precautions, even if he
had been sailing on a piece of ornamental water; and he went quickly
forward to give the necessary orders, after getting a nod of assent from
Guy.
The latter raised himself lazily on his arm, so as to see all round over
the low bulwarks. There was a blue-black bank of cloud rolling up from
the southwest.
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