From the Diary of Joseph bar Sabbas,
called Justus . . .

The wind shrieked through the rigging like a raging, maniacal spirit that appears as a sign that all who hear her voice are about to die.

Sails rent, torn in tatters flailed in the stinging, howling, rain-swept gale. Despite anchors thrown from the stern of the ship, the vessel careened in the storm like desultory flotsam tossed by relentless, swelling surges. The anchors caught and held, lines snapping taut and rigid. The storm bore down from the northeast and by anchoring from the stern, the prow of the ship pointed downwind southwest, directly toward land. The crew feared that should the lines break, we would with certainty, founder on the rocks. A mammoth wall of water assaulted our stern, lifting it high in the air and then crashing down into the trailing sea-trough. As the aft-end of the ship descended, another undulating surge loomed above, lifting it precipitously, straining the lines to the anchors. Suddenly, there was a sharp, vibrating twang!, as one of the four lines snapped. The other lines, absorbing the strain from the broken line, quickly gave way as if the wind and the waves had severed them with a razor. The ship surged with the waves, free of restraint.

Timbers creaked loudly. Hemp lines cascaded across the decks in chaotic array. Mountains of water fell athwart the beams. Spars and yardarms dipped, as if yearning, seeking to find comfort in the sea. Loud thumps, crashes from the ship's hold gave verdict to loose and tumbling cargo slamming against weakening bulkheads. A shattering thud! Dull noise of cracking timbers. For a split second, there was no movement--no movement at all--a shock of eerie silence amidst raging cacophony. Arrested momentum threw the bodies of crew members and passengers alike against bulkheads with jarring force. Screams of panic and despair. The ship was doomed, barely four hundred yards from the shores of Malta.

Recovering my consciousness and adjusting from that terrible, bone-crushing halt, we wallowed perilously amongst the waves. It took no intelligence to discern that the ship had struck a rock, or rocks--and we were going down. I rushed to the port side and stared into the rain, driven by black, angry clouds and gale-force winds from above, trying to see what I hoped was land close by. What I saw was a gigantic rock protuberance impelling itself from the depths thirty feet into the air above the churning surface, its top painted white with seagull droppings. This is what we struck. Another massive bank of water slammed the wreck hard against the rock and when it had passed, the ship began to slip back into the ocean, its port rail, where I was standing dipping low, bending for the water.

Instantly I leaped back, in pathetic effort to save myself from drowning. The deck tilted into an unscalable wall. My foot slid on the wet. I grabbed for something, anything to hold onto and save myself. My fingers wrapped around the edges of a container, a wooden box, or a lid of a box, I couldn't tell. Yet another mountain of water struck the ship, driving it up once again against the rock. More bursting timbers. The lid came loose and in seconds I skidded across the deck untethered, and into the dark maw of cascading depths. The wood jerked from my grip as I impacted the water and plunged beneath the waves. In a moment I emerged, my lungs afire, sputtering and choking on salt water. Not a soul in sight. The ship heaved ominously above me, a giant shadow of impending death. Something bumped and I turned to see the lid of the box which had, thankfully, pursued me into the water. I reached and grasped it with both hands, pulled it against my chest and held on for the dearest moments of my life.

The sea was relentless, tossing wave after wave, and tossing me into a somersault and away from the ship. As my head emerged from the water again, I watched in horror as the vessel broke free of the rock and was blown toward land--now lost to sight, I was alone with my solitary piece of debris, my old flesh and bones screaming agony and affliction. The water was ungodly cold and I seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. I saw the ship one last time as I drove past her on my life-saving box-lid. She had run aground, her prow stuck firmly in whatever sand or clay that counted for an ocean bottom in these waters. She was breaking up. Men were scampering into boats and jumping overboard. I wondered how many would survive. Surely I would, myself, perish, and my treasure; my precious treasure would find its permanent home at the bottom of the sea, forever sealed from the eyes of those I had yearned to behold it. My cherished cargo, my Gospel of my Lord, gone forever.