at the end of one of the long bars, I thought to take it up,
and lay it on the heap with the others; but the moment I had raised
the end next the other bars, it flew out of my hand with such violence,
against the head of the ship, and with such a noise, as greatly
surprised me, and put me in fear it had broke through the plank.

I just stayed to see no harm was done, and ran upon deck with my hair
stiff on my head; nor could I conceive less than that some subtle spirit
had done this prank merely to terrify me.

It ran in my pate several days, and I durst upon no account have gone
into the hold again, though my whole support had lain there; nay, it
even spoiled my rest, for fear something tragical should befall me, of
which this amazing incident was an omen.

About a week after, as I was shifting myself (for I had not taken my
clothes off since I came there), and putting on a new pair of shoes
which I found on board, my own being very bad, taking out my iron
buckles, I laid one of them upon a broken piece of the mast that I sat
upon; when to my astonishment, it was no sooner out of my hand but up it
flew to the rock and stuck there. I could not tell what to make of it,
but was sorry the devil had got above deck. I then held several other
things one after another in my hand, and laid them down where I laid the
buckle, but nothing stirred till I took out the fellow of that from the
shoes; when letting it go away, it jumped also to the rock.

I mused on these phenomena for some time, and could not forbear calling
upon God to protect me from the devil; who must, as I imagined, have
a hand in such unaccountable things as they then seemed to me. But at
length reason got the better of these foolish apprehensions, and I began
to think there might be some natural cause of them, and next to be
very desirous of finding it out In order to this I set about making
experiments to try what would run to the rock and what would not. I went
into the captain's cabin, and opening a cupboard, of which the key was
in the door, I took out a pipe, a bottle, a pocket-book, a silver spoon,
a tea-cup, &c, and laid them successively near the rock; when none of
them answered, but the key which I had brought out of the cupboard on
my finger dropping off while I was thus employed, no sooner was it
disengaged but away it went to it. After that I tried several other
pieces of iron-ware with the like success. Upon this, and the needle of
my compass st