thing to do but lie on deck and wait for a breeze, and Bar Shalmon
took advantage of the occasion to treat them to a feast.

Suddenly, in the midst of the feasting, they felt the ship begin to
move. There was no wind, but the vessel sped along very swiftly. The
captain himself rushed to the helm. To his alarm he found the vessel
beyond control.

"The ship is bewitched," he exclaimed. "There is no wind, and no
current, and yet we are being borne along as if driven before a storm.
We shall be lost."

Panic seized the sailors, and Bar Shalmon was unable to pacify them.

"Someone on board has brought us ill-luck," said the boatswain,
looking pointedly at Bar Shalmon; "we shall have to heave him
overboard."

His comrades assented and rushed toward Bar Shalmon.

Just at that moment, however, the look-out in the bow cried excitedly,
"Land ahead!"

The ship still refused to answer the helm and grounded on a sandbank.
She shivered from stem to stern but did not break up. No rocks were
visible, only a desolate tract of desert land was to be seen, with
here and there a solitary tree.

"We seem to have sustained no damage," said the captain, when he had
recovered from his first astonishment, "but how we are going to get
afloat again I do not know. This land is quite strange to me."

He could not find it marked on any of his charts or maps, and the
sailors stood looking gloomily at the mysterious shore.

"Had we not better explore the land?" said Bar Shalmon.

"No, no," exclaimed the boatswain, excitedly. "See, no breakers strike
on the shore. This is not a human land. This is a domain of demons. We
are lost unless we cast overboard the one who has brought on us this
ill-luck."

Said Bar Shalmon, "I will land, and I will give fifty silver crowns to
all who land with me."

Not one of the sailors moved, however, even when he offered fifty
golden crowns, and at last Bar Shalmon said he would land alone,
although the captain strongly urged him not to do so.

Bar Shalmon sprang lightly to the shore, and as he did so the ship
shook violently.

"What did I tell you?" shouted the boatswain. "Bar Shalmon is the one
who has brought us this misfortune. Now we shall refloat the ship."

But it still remained firmly fixed on the sand. Bar Shalmon walked
towards a tree and climbed it. In a few moments he returned, holding a
twig in his hand.

"The land stretches away for miles just as you see it here," he called
to the capta