Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/61

 shipers took to their canoes, amid the raging storm and angry sea. After they had departed from the shore, they looked back upon the island. The mountain seemed to be lit up in a blaze of ghastly, unearthly light; those vapory clouds presenting to their affrighted minds a strange phantasmagoria as of men and beasts, among which they thought they saw the form of. their victim, 'the drooping flower. "The storm raged all night; but two of the canoes reached the main-land, the occupants having undergone for several days much suffering. After their rescue they related what had happened, and heard with amazement that the girl's prophecy had already come to pass! The White Man had arrived in Mexico. From that time forth no more sacrificial offerings were attempted on the island: 'the God of the Sea-Storm' was destroyed. Henceforth, according to the tradition of the locality, these attractive shores bore the ominous appellation of 'the Haunted Isles,' and were ever after shunned by every Indian with superstitious dread.

"The vapory, or phosphorescent, light which so frightened the idolaters from their intended sacrificial offering of the unhappy virgin, still makes its appearance when the first storms after the long, dry season moisten t. ¢ earth and exuberant, decaying vegetation, in which, according to Indian superstition, the spirit of Ixotle still dwells."

Such was the strange legend, deeply dyed with romance, as told me by the aged Padre of the Mission of San Luis. It may have been much exaggerated through its long repetition, but at the same time there would appear to be some foundation for its truthfulness.

I have myself seen the phosphorescent vapors. On returning from my first visit to the Socorro Island, in the month of June, three years before, we passed between the two main islands, and during the night of the 24th were overtaken by a chudbasco, or tornado, which threatened our destruction. We were drenched with the rain and spray, and the ocean was white with foam, the wind furious, and the lightning awfully vivid. We could not carry sail, yet we were driven before the wind like a feather — our little craft plunging madly through the surge. I was holding the light, and the compass on my lap, down in the little cabin, and calling out the course to the Captain, that he might know how to steer. He suddenly called to me, and said the island was in a blaze of light. I looked out, and saw the strange phenomenon. It appeared in many places as if enshrouded in a pale, ghastly light of mist, which, swayed and moved by the wind, produced curious and fantastic figures of unearthly appearance. The storm was of short duration. The sea

became again quiet, and the clouds less lowering, but the vapors still hovered over the island.