Nothing for it but to go about and try Salerno again.

What could you do in an open felucca with the green water running over?
You did your best.

Five hours out of that pitch black night you beat up, first trying one harbour and then the other.

Amalfi gave in first, just as the waning moon rose, and you got under the breakwater at last.
You remember that last of your many narrow escapes to-day as you trudge up the stony mule-track through the green valleys, and it strikes you that after all it is easier to walk from Diamante all the way to Verbicaro, than to face a March storm in the gulf of Salerno in an open boat on a dark night.

Up you go, past that strange ruin of the great Norman-Saracen castle standing alone on the steep little hill which rises out of the middle of the valley, commanding the roads on the right and the left.