Presently they vanished, and the fire was quenched also. In the
morning he landed, but found no Indians nor English, only brands' ends
cast up by the waves; and he did believe, unto the day of his death,
that it was a piece of Indian sorcery. "There be strange stories told
of Passaconaway, the chief of the River Indians," he continued. "I have
heard one say who saw it, that once, at the Patucket Falls, this chief,
boasting of his skill in magic, picked up a dry skin of a snake, which
had been cast off, as is the wont of the reptile, and making some
violent motions of his body, and calling upon his Familiar, or Demon, he
did presently cast it down upon the rocks, and it became a great black
serpent, which mine informant saw crawl off into some bushes, very
nimble. This Passaconaway was accounted by his tribe to be a very
cunning conjurer, and they do believe that he could brew storms, make
water burn, and cause green leaves to grow on trees in the winter; and,
in brief, it may be said of him, that he was not a whit behind the
magicians of Egypt in the time of Moses.
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