"A miracle!" cried the ship's company; but Bar Noemi said: "Ye now see that Jehovah has heard me, for He has sent His messenger from heaven as a sign that He will deliver us from this present distress. Let us, then, take our mantles, and whatever else can be spared from the ship, the garments of the women, the precious gold stuffs, the Phrygian velvets, and let us sew them together and make us a sail. A west wind is arising which will drive us upon some coast; there will we refit our ship and return to Tyre."
The ship's company obeyed and set to work. They made them a large sail of bright shreds and patches; they hoisted it up, not without sore labour; and scarcely had the sun sunk down and melted away in his own reflection at the extreme margin of the sky, when a light breeze arose in the east which at first but lightly curled the waves, but gradually made the whole sea heave and toss. The patched sail bulged out, the ship righted herself, stood firm amidst the waves, and began to glide along the watery mirror, and the ship's company, sinking on their knees, stammered: "Jehovah is our God."
All night long the wind blew in the same direction, and all night long Bar Noemi scrutinized the stars. The constellations with which he was so familiar, for he had diligently studied them during his long voyages, remained constant at the same height, in an unaltered arch, right above his head, a sign, he knew, that the ship was following a northerly course.
Three days and three nights the rudderless ship flew with a single sail over the surface of the ocean. On the fourth day there appeared very faintly on the distant horizon, like the forehead of some brown marine monster, the ridge of the world-supporting Atlas mountains, the rock of the unconquerable Gebel-al-Tarik, which we degenerate moderns call Gibraltar. This point was familiar to the mariners. They knew that the fortunate inhabitants of the golden apple-gardens of the Hesperides would certainly welcome them with joy, though it would have been more dangerous for the seafarers to have gazed into the eyes of the maidens of the Atlas mountains than to have listened to the songs of the Sirens or to have sailed between the coral-reefs of Scylla the accursed. The joys of this outermost African haven had torn more sailors from the rowing-benches than even famine or pestilence, the twin destroying angels of antiquity.
Shouting for joy, Bar Noemi's crew clambered up to the masthead, so as to better survey from thence the promised land, which drew nearer to them every moment. Already they began to make out the shadowy coastline; already they could distinguish the fresh green of the woods against the dark-blue mountain-side, the narrow strips of cornland, and the scarlet bloom of the almond woods on the shore below. Already they perceived the sky-blue enamel of the luxuriant sesame flowers in the meadows, and the inviting smoke-wreaths arising from the hospitable huts on the shore—when, suddenly, a small black cloud arose in the south-east, which, in a moment, darkened the sun and changed the complexion of the ocean. The waves took a murky, dark-green tinge, Atlas veiled himself in dusky grey, the shores became dark blue, and seemed to draw further and further away; and, all at once, as if fallen from the skies, the whole surface of the water was covered by those white birds with black wings whose vital element is the tempest, who live by the storm, and only come forth from their nooks and crannies as harbingers of evil to the mariner, circling round the ship with terrifying screams, as if only sent forth to bewail the crew.
Bar Noemi ordered the single sail to be furled, kissed first his lovely wife, and then his faithful comrades, one after the other, for whom there was no longer any hope of salvation save only in the mighty hand of the Lord, and, falling upon his knees, he began to sing the psalm: "In Thee, O Lord, do we put our trust," they all following his example.
The raging of the waves, the howling of the wind, grew ever louder, the song of the suppliants ever fainter; the awful crash of the thunder mingled with the concert of Death; the black clouds veiled the sun with an impenetrable veil, and only the lightning flashed out at intervals like a spectral torch. At every flash the black outlines of Atlas were visible like the terrible shape of a ghostly nightmare, and on the foaming crests of the lurid wave-mountains swept a tiny nutshell, a frail wooden pellet, the plaything of the storm, wherein some two hundred or so of that species of worm which calls itself Lord of the Universe were huddled together into a trembling, whining mass.
The fury of the storm kept steadily increasing, the sullen day became a yet more sullen night. Bar Noemi's crew saw the rocks of the Atlas range drawing nearer every moment, and they cursed Bar Noemi and the God to whom he prayed, without ceasing. Another instant and they will all be dashed to pieces.
Then the lightning flashes ceased, and long hours of gloom succeeded. The storm tossed the ship about in its mad frolic; the minutes passed in mortal anguish, and when, after many hours, a fresh lightning flash lights up the whole horizon, the astonished mariners no longer see the Atlas mountains. They have been driven far out into the Atlantic ocean.
"Jehovah is our God alone."