A Spanish bark once set sail from Cadiz, bound for Sicily. They had very calm weather, and they feared at last that their water would run short. All the crew, therefore, made vows to St. Antonio, and promised to place a silver candlestick upon his shrine if he would send them a prosperous breeze. The captain of the ship alone refused to join in their prayers, saying that St. Antonio could no more send them a wind than a pig could see it, and vowing that at all events if it were not so, the saint was a shabby fellow not to give poor sailors a breeze without their having to rob their wives and families to pay him for it. But day after day passed by, and the sails still hung in unwinking folds from the lateen yards, and the reflection of the ship could be seen in the sea as in a mirror. One evening, after a very hot day, the air felt even closer than usual, and the captain told the men that he must reduce still further their allowance of water. That night, therefore, they redoubled their supplications to the saint, and the captain who, by-the-by, was a Frenchman, redoubled his abuse of him, swearing that St. Antonio could not muster as much wind as would blow out a candle, far less urge on a ship. The words had hardly been spoken when a great light shone upon the vessel, and, running to the stern, they all saw St. Antonio, with a halo round his head, coming walking upon the water towards them. At this they all fell upon their knees, and even the French captain grew pale, and his legs almost failed him. 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 a holy body—a corpus sanctum—created, has never been extinguished, but floats over the ocean, appearing now as a warning of approaching death, anon as a harbinger of hope to mariners.
This was the Spanish tale of the Corpus Sant, and I now asked for the English legend of ‘Nell’s Beacon.’
‘Why,’ quoth the boatswain, ‘I never heard it told; but often I have heard it sung both afloat and ashore, in the taverns at Limehouse or Portsmouth Point, and aboard many a ship in many a sea.’ Thereupon, all the watch desiring to hear the song, the boatswain, in a very coarse gruff voice, chanted the following stanzas, which, rude as they are, I put down just as I heard them:—
The Legend of ‘Nell’s Beacon.’
There are stormy seas do roll,
Which the boldest well may dread,
When the east wind whistles snell
On the cliffs of Beachy Head.