One day a coastguard man was out in his boat with some of the islanders
when a terrible storm arose with thunder and lightning. The poor people
fell on their knees and prayed devoutly, but the man laughed at them,
called them fools and cowards, and said he also could make lightning
and thunder as well as the God they were praying to. So he immediately
prepared a small cannon he had on board, and set a match to the powder
and fired it off. But before the echo died away a stream of lightning
passed over him, and he fell dead in the boat a blackened corpse—a
dreadful sign of the vengeance of heaven on his blasphemous daring.