Meantime the saint walked upon the sea up to the stern, and placing his hand upon the taffrail of the ship, said— ‘This to confound thy unbelief, thou contemner of holy men and things!’ At the same giving the ship what appeared to be a slight push, but which flung her forward as if she had been a stone hurled from a sling. The saint having performed this feat, instantly vanished, and at the same moment a fearful storm, the like of which was never seen by man, suddenly arising, drove on the ship with the same rapidity as that which the hand of the saint had imparted to her. Meantime all the crew were on their knees praying to the Virgin to intercede for them with St. Antonio, and expecting nothing less than instant death. But the ship continued to drive with unearthly rapidity, although without injury, and beginning to take courage, they observed, on looking about, a bright light burning upon that part of the taffrail which the saint had touched with his hand. For three days and three nights the miraculous storm lasted. The ship flew through the water quicker than birds cleave the air, and the supernatural nature of the tempest was made still more evident by the fact that it was not general over the sea, but that within half a cable’s length from the ship the ocean and the air were either perfectly at rest, or a pleasant breeze was blowing, and vessels were sailing with a fair wind in the opposite direction to that in which the saint-cursed ship was driven. Still, however, the mariners did not cease to importune St. Antonio for pardon, and the captain was loudest in his prayers, and most lavish in his vows. At length, at midnight on the third night, the light, which had never ceased to burn, suddenly moved from its place, and flitting to the mast, began to ascend it. As the meteor rose into the air, the fury of the storm lulled. The mariners, seeing this, fell upon their knees and put up loud thanksgivings. The light continued to rise until it glittered upon the highest point of the rigging, to wit, the end of the great lateen yard, where having remained steady for some time, it gave a sudden bright flash, and then soared into the air, until the gazers could distinguish it no longer amid the stars. The wind then fell as suddenly as it had risen, and the strained ship again floated tranquilly upon unbroken water. When the day dawned, the crew saw land barely a league a-head of them, and a fishing-boat coming off soon after, they learned that they were off Cape Epiphane in the island of Cyprus, having traversed, in an incredibly short space of time, almost the whole length of the Mediterranean sea. A pleasant breeze, however, soon sprang up from the east, and having obtained what water and stores they needed, they turned the ship’s head westward, and arrived without accident at their port in Sicily, where great honours were paid to the shrine of St. Antonio. From that time to this, say the mariners of Spain, the light which the touch of