‘At length, comrades, in the thick of the roaring tornado, with all the gibbering ghosts dimly seen flitting on the deck amid the flying spray and foam, there was shouted from the prows, in a voice which boomed like the tones of a church bell, “Land.”
‘At this the spectre of the Norse mariner turned to Tronda, and said—
‘“Now hear your doom. From this time forth you will haunt the cape on which we are driving; and there you will have power over the winds which blow. Your evil nature, which is as a mighty devil within you, will ever impel you to retard rather than to advance the course of mariners; but yet, for every moment of time a ship is hindered on her course, will you pass a year of torment, such as it is not in the breast of man to conceive. And this shall last even to the day when the sea shall give up its dead.”
‘In a moment after, mates, the galley was crushed into splinters, and not a vestige of her, or of her precious cargo of pearls, and jewels, and gold, were ever seen by man. But Tronda, the evil spirit of Cape Morant, still haunts that desolate beach and these stormy breakers, and sometimes in wild mid-watches, the mariner has caught a glimpse of her pale face and stony eyes, and floating locks, driving through the scud of the storm, with her arms tossed above her head, as though she were still singing the chaunt which raised wind and waves. I never spoke, comrades, with those who saw her; but I have heard tell of a sailor of Sir Francis Drake, who being, in a night of storm, clinging to the end of the bowsprit furling a split sail, beheld the ancient face of the hag, with her grey, fishy eyes, looking into his own, and who came near letting go hold of the spar in his fright, and tumbling into the boiling sea below. But he managed to make his way, all pale and shaking, on board the ship, where he told what he had witnessed; and certain old men of the crew said it was a most evil omen, and that either the ship would be lost, or he who saw the appearance would be drowned. Now, word being passed through the ship of what had happened, it came to the ears of the stout-hearted admiral himself; and presently Sir Francis appeared out of the main cabin.
‘“What is this I hear, men,” says he, “that one of you has been frightened by a demon?”
‘“It was the devil, Sir Francis!” said the sailor, by name James Gilbert.
‘“And what if it were?” quoth the admiral. “He is but a coward. If he shows his face to you again, pluck the grisly fiend by the beard. The devil fears all who do not fear him.”
‘But for all these bold words of the admiral, the old sailors were right. Before the ship had made Porto Bello, whither she was bound, Gilbert was flung from the lee foretop-sail yard-arm into the sea. After the first plunge, he never came to the surface, and the old sailors knew that what had happened was in consequence of his having seen the demon who haunts Point Morant.’