The Cruise of the Branwen

CHAPTER IY FROM ITALY TO GREECE Illi robur et aes triplex Circa pectus erat qui fragilem truci Commisit pelago ratem Primus ... IT was at half past two on the afternoon of April 17 that we four swordsmen started on our little Odyssey from Naples Bay-a Scot, two English, and the Welshman on whose boat we sailed the fickle seas. She had not long been worked out on her first voyage from Southampton to Monte Carlo, and she was now to cruise from Naples to the Piraeus, and back up the Dalmatian coast to Venice. The thought of Athens Tournament loomed like another siege of Troy; it coloured all our journey, and lent appropriate comparisons even to the small size of our craft, for she was scarcely larger than Odysseus's ship, and her speed was about ten knots,• which cannot have been more than three knots better than his swiftest sailing. Even the elements joined the conspiracy, and • The s.Y. Branwen, R.Y.S., has been altered and improved since we were all aboard her; but by the kindness of Messrs. John I. Thornycroft and Co. I am able to give the technical 38