the crew, and at night the same fog gathered, the same deadly chill came
on. Finding themselves in shoal water, and apparently near some island,
they decided to anchor the boat; and as the man in the bow bent over to
clear away the anchor, something came down upon him with the same awful
force, and knocked him overboard. His body could not be recovered, and as
the wind came up, they drove before it until noon of the next day, seeing
nothing of any land and the ocean deepening again. By noon the fog
cleared, and they saw nothing, but cried with one voice that the boat
should be put about, and they should return to Spain. For two days they
rowed in peace over a summer sea; then came the fog again and they laid on
their oars that night. All around them dim islands seemed to float,
scarcely discernible in the fog; sometimes from the top of each a point
would show itself, as of a mighty hand, and they could hear an occasional
plash and roar, as if this hand came downwards. Once they heard a cry, as
if of sailors from another vessel. Then they strained their eyes to gaze
into the fog, and a whole island seemed to be turning itself upside down,
its peak coming down, while its base went uppermost, and the whole water
boiled for leagues around, as if both earth and sea were upheaved.

The sun rose upon this chaos of waters. No demon hand was anywhere
visible, nor any island, but a few icebergs were in sight, and the
frightened sailors rowed away and made sail for home. It was rare to see
icebergs so far south, and this naturally added to the general dismay.
Amid the superstition of the sailors, the tales grew and grew, and all the
terrors became mingled. But tradition says that there were some veteran
Spanish sailors along that coast, men who had sailed on longer voyages,
and that these persons actually laughed at the whole story of Satan's
Hand, saying that any one who had happened to see an iceberg topple over
would know all about it. It was more generally believed, however, that all
this was mere envy and jealousy; the daring fishermen remained heroes for