With what majesty the monarch held his lonely state above the level sea! Distance clothed him in a purple gloom, and added a veil of shimmering mist that so softened his rugged features that we seemed to see him through a web of silver gauze.
His torch was out; his fires were smoldering; a tall column of smoke that rose up and lost itself in the growing moonlight was all the sign he gave that he was a living Autocrat of the Sea and not the spectre of a dead one.
At two in the morning we swept through the Straits of Messina, and so bright was the moonlight that Italy on the one hand and Sicily on the other seemed almost as distinctly visible as though we looked at them from the middle of a street we were traversing.

The city of Messina, milk-white, and starred and spangled all over with gaslights, was a fairy spectacle.

A great party of us were on deck smoking and making a noise, and waiting to see famous Scylla and Charybdis.

And presently the Oracle stepped out with his eternal spy-glass and squared himself on the deck like another Colossus of Rhodes.

It was a surprise to see him abroad at such an hour.