gondola began to skim the waves. But just at midnight there was heard, from the vicinity of the route it was then going, a most hideous uproar, in which the voice of the great sorcerer was most loud, and resounded far over the waters. A few of the boldest young men hastened with torches and arms towards the spot. Soon they saw the form of the huge rower conspicuous on the deck, engaged in sinking his own vessel, and stamping it deeper and deeper into the waves below; at the same time he seemed to be playing at ball with the sorcerer, and at a single blow struck off his head, after which boat and boatman both sunk together into the deep.
“On the following morning the shattered limbs of the necromancer were found scattered in different places, washed up by the waves. What appeared still more remarkable was, the discovery of a dead elephant lying, apparently drowned, upon the sea shore, a few miles distant from the city. But whence the strange monster could have been brought, or by what means, no one knew.
“It was surmised, however, by many, that the same necromancer had, by his infernal art, metamorphosed the huge animal into the human form, and employed it in this way, at Venice, for the purpose of effecting some of his diabolical schemes. That at this time he must for once have miscalculated the exact hour and planet under which he was operating;
