“There is a famine here in Myra. People are hungry,” the bishop responded. “Yet you will deliver all this grain to a place where there is plenty of food?”

“I’m very sorry to hear of your misfortune, but the grain is not mine to give,” the captain said.

“Winter comes soon,” the bishop went on, “and people will starve. Is this justice, that some suffer so while others feast?”

“I wish I could help, I really do,” the captain said almost wistfully.

“I am asking for only a hundred measures from each ship,” the bishop repeated. “Do as I say and through God’s power, you will not find the wheat short at your journey’s end.”

The captain gazed at the bishop. This was a crazy idea! Yet there was something about this man that made the captain believe him. He trusted Nicholas even though there was no sense to what he was saying.

Turning to his crew, the captain shouted, “One hundred measures is to be taken from each ship!”