curiosity that I gave orders to steer back to my own coast; but I perceived at the same time that the pilot knew not where we were. Upon the tenth day a seaman being sent to look out for land from the main-mast head, gave notice that on starboard and larboard he could see nothing but the sky and the sea, which bounded the horizon; but that just before us he saw a great blackness.
At this the pilot changed colour and, throwing his turban on the deck with one hand, and beating his breast with the other, cried, 'Oh, sir, we are all lost; not one of us will escape; and with all my skill it is not in my power to prevent it.' Having spoken thus, he fell a-crying like a man who foresaw unavoidable ruin: his despair put the whole ship's crew in fear. I asked him the reason. He told me that the tempest, which we had outlived, had brought us so far out of our course that to-morrow about noon we should come near to the black place, which was nothing else than the black mountain. 'That,' said he, 'is a mine of adamant, which at this very minute is drawing all your fleet towards it, by virtue of the iron and the nails that are in your ships; and when we come to-morrow within a certain distance, the adamant will have such a force that all the nails will be drawn out of the sides and bottom of the ships, and fasten to the mountain, so that your vessel will fall to pieces, and sink to the bottom: and as the adamant draws all iron to it, this mountain on the side of the sea is covered over with nails, drawn out of an infinite number of vessels that have perished here.
'The mountain,' continued the pilot, 'is very rugged; on the top of it there is a dome of fine brass, supported by pillars of the same, and upon the top of that dome there stands a horse of the same metal, with a rider on his back, who has a plate of lead fixed to his breast, upon which some talismanic characters are engraven. Sir, the tradition is that this statue is the chief reason why so many ships and men have been lost and sunk in this place, and that it will ever continue to be fatal to all who have the misfortune to come near to it, until it is thrown down.'
The pilot, having ended his explanation, began to weep afresh, and all the rest of the ship's company did the like. I had no other thought but that my days were then and there to have an end. In the meantime every one began to provide for his own safety, and
