However, we at length got heartily tired of our sojourn amid the reefs, and the more so as we began to fear that we might miss the rich ship from Carthagena. A council was therefore held, at which we all agreed that we had wasted too much time already, seeking for the dwarf’s treasure, and that the sooner the ship’s head was turned to the southward the better. Accordingly, the next sunrise saw the boats hoisted up, our anchor safely catted at our bows, and the schooner running gaily upon her original course. We had rough weather and heavy seas ere we made the Samballas islands, to which we first intended to repair, and one stormy night I saw, for the first time, the appearance of that strange light which is sometimes seen on board ships at sea, and which the Spanish and Portuguese seamen know as the ‘corpus,’ or ‘corpus sant,’ and which our sailors sometimes call ‘Nell’s Beacon.’ The Spanish word seems to me to be clearly a corruption of ‘corpus sanctum’—the holy body—they tracing the light, which I believe to be nothing else than a mere harmless wandering meteor, to some religious or sacred origin. The night that the corpus sant appeared on board the Will-o’-the-Wisp was stormy and unsettled, the sky being piled with gloomy clouds, and the wind strong and gusty. I was sitting by the steersman, when, looking aloft, I saw something like a greenish-blue glare flickering along the weather end of the main cross-trees, just as if some one at a distance had been flashing a dark lantern through the rigging. I was rubbing my eyes, doubtful whether I had seen aright, when all at once the pale glimmer appeared, as it were, to become concentrated on one spot at the very end of the cross-trees, where it gleamed with a dim yet steady light, like a star. The boatswain had the helm, and I pointed it out to him. ‘Nell’s Beacon,’ quoth he; ‘I know it well. When it burns high up in the rigging, then it is a good omen, and a sign of fair weather; but when it descends upon deck and moves to and fro then it is time for all who see it to bethink themselves of their sins.’