"Anger got the better o' our fear. We sprang upon him the moment the ship was safe; a desperate tulzie began, for every blow o' his bony hands was like a cloure frae a smith's hammer, and he knocked our best men owre like ninepins; his eldritch yells were like the whistling wind, and he laughed and kicked, when at last we laid him sprawling on the deck, and, while our hearts boiled wi' fear and fury, lashed him hard and fast by neck and heels to ringbolts. Some proposed to heave him overboard, wi' a shot at his craig, but Sir Andrew wouldna hear o' that; and as soon as we dropped anchor at Funchal, the Guancho was handed owre to the Dominicans and the Commander of the Order of Christ, who put him in a vault o' the Castle of St. James, to thole a trial for sorcery and murder. Our story filled a' Funchal wi' terror and consternation. A lang procession o' Dominican Fathers, carrying relics, crosses, banners, and holy-water pots, marched to the Castle o' St. James, to exorcise the demon; and the holy-water, when it fell frae the asperges on his brown hide, hissed as if it sputtered on iron in a white heat, and he girned at the priests like a marmoset. At last, finding that exorcism and blessed water were used alike in vain, the Portuguese Dominicans and the Knights of Christ betuik themsels to prayer, and after solemn high mass is the great church, visited the Guancho again. "They found him free o' his fetters, and laughing like a wild imp, while he gied the finishing strokes to a great galley or boat, which he had chalked, wi' its sails set, and twenty rowers at their paddles, on his dungeon wall. They marvelled sairly at this strange employment, for one wha's funeral fire stood burning in the castle yard; but a glamour was owre them, and nane dared approach him. "Then the brown deevil drew the waves below the galley sae lifelike, that _they_ seemed to roll and _it_ to heave, while the rowers began to paddle, and a low wild chant was heard, as they a paddled and kept time. Then he drew a ladder, wi' two perpendicular strokes and sax horizontal ones; and then he _stepped on board_, wi' anither o' his eldritch yells. The rowers began to paddle harder than ever, and while their sang died awa, it sailed clean off the wall wi' him, and left ne'er a trace behind. "A Knight of Christ sprang forward, but the place was empty, clear o' its evil tenant, and no a vestige o' the fairy-ship remained upon the dungeon wall. Noo, what think ye o' _that_ story, messmates?" "By my faith, I would rather drink bilge a' my days than once sail the sea wi' a deevil in the ship's companie," said Willie Wad.