of
the tempest, a man approached one of the gondoliers on the Riva dei
Schiavoni, near the cathedral, and asked to be rowed across the canal
to San Giorgio Maggiore. It was in vain that the gondolier protested he
could not make head against the storm; he was at last forced to yield
to the importunities of his would-be passenger. But what was his
surprise to find that his boat proceeded as easily as though no storm
were raging. On their arrival at San Giorgio Maggiore they were joined
by another man, and the gondolier was now directed to proceed to the
Lido. This time his reluctance was less difficult to overcome,
although the storm was growing worse, for he felt encouraged by the
ease with which he had already made part of the journey. And sure
enough his long row to the Lido was equally uneventful. Here a third
man joined the party, and the gondolier was told to row out between the
castles on either side of the entrance into the open Adriatic. Feeling
that he could now refuse nothing, the gondolier undertook to accomplish
this apparently impossible task, and succeeded in reaching the sea.
Here there arose before them a ship manned by the demons of the storm,
who were steering their way in toward Venice, bringing utter
destruction with them. And now the three men in the little boat stood
up and pronounced an exorcism of such power that the ship foundered,
and the demons, howling fearfully, were swallowed up in the deep.
Immediately the tempest was stilled and the waves died down. The
gondolier was now ordered to take his passengers back to the places
where they embarked, and when the last of them, the first one he had
picked up, stepped on to the Riva dei Schiavoni, he announced himself
to be Mark, the Evangelist, and dropped a ring worth five ducats into
the gondolier's hand, telling him to show it to the authori-
