THE DROWNING OF MARY
Abba Palladios also told us that he had heard a shipmaster telling a story something like this: One day, I was sailing along with passengers on board, both men and women. We came out onto the high sea, and all the other ships were sailing well—some to Constantinople, some to Alexandria, and others elsewhere. The wind stood well for each of them, but we alone could make no headway. We remained stuck in the same place for fifteen days, not moving at all from where we lay. We were in great distress and despair, not knowing why this should be.
As I was the master of the vessel, responsible for both the boat and all who sailed in her, I began to pray to God about the matter. One day, a voice of no visible origin came to me, saying: “Throw Mary out, and you will make good way.” As I delayed, trying to work out what this meant and who Mary might be, the voice came to me again: “I told you: throw Mary out, and you will be safe.”
Then I devised the following procedure. I shouted out, “Mary!”—for I had no idea who Mary was. She, however, was lying in her bunk, and she responded, saying, “Why are you calling, sir?” I then said to her, “Would you please be so kind as to come here?” She got up and came. When she arrived, I took her aside and said to her, “Sister Mary, you see how great my sins are and that because of me you are all going to perish?” She heaved a deep sigh and said, “Oh Shipmaster, sir; in fact, it is I who am the sinner.”
I said to her, “Woman, what sins have you committed?” She replied, “I think there is no sin which I have not committed; and because of my sins, everybody is going to perish.” Then, the shipmaster recounted, the woman said something like this to me: “In fact, Shipmaster, wretch that I am, I had a husband and two children from him. When one of the children was nine years old and the other five, my husband died, and I was left a widow. There was a soldier living near me who wished to take me for his wife, but I sent some people to talk to him. The soldier said he would not take a wife who had children by another man with her. When I learned that he did not want to take me on account of the children, and also because I was very much in love with him, wretch that I am, I slew the children and said to him, ‘See, now I have none.’ When he heard what I had done with the children, he said, ‘As the Lord lives who dwells in heaven, I will not have her.’ In my fear that it might become known what I had done and I lose my life, I fled.”
Even when I heard this from the woman, I still did not want to throw her into the sea just like that. So I equivocated and told her, “Look, I will get into the dinghy, and if the vessel then makes way, know, woman, that it is my sins which are at work in this ship.” Then, he said, he called for the dinghy and ordered it to be launched. But when he got into it, neither ship nor dinghy made any more headway than before.
So he came back on board and said to the woman, “You get down into the dinghy.” She did; and as soon as she set foot in the dinghy, it turned round about five times and then sank to the bottom of the deep. Then the ship sailed on, and in three and a half days, we completed a journey which should have taken fifteen days.