Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 10

"So I drew my cutla.s.s ant mate a lunge at him, supposing I vas in for a death; but he wrested it vrom me, ant mate me sit down ant vinish te pottle, ant we soon got right vell acquainted.

"'Vhen do you leave te creek, schipper Schenk?' says he.

"'It vill take me two tays yet, mit my three men, to set te bowsprit.

It's a pad pusiness, dish delay; ant I vish I vas vell out of dis place'--for I pegan to fear for my throat, notmitstanding ve drank Scheitam togedder. But Captain Kyt vas de shentleman. He sent his men to help mine, ant in four hours I vas ready for sea again, sount as ever.

He came to see me off, sent two flasches ov de Scheitam, ant shook hants mit me, mit many pleashant vords, ant gave me dis arrow, saying, 'Tese are my pa.s.sports for my frients. If you ever are in any tanger from my peoplesh, it vill pe your safeguart.' Ant he spoke true; for it hash twice saven my cargoesh."

As the skipper concluded, he held up to view a small silver arrow the length of his fore-finger, on which the warden discovered, as it was pa.s.sed round from one to the other, the words:

"_Respect the sign._ KYD."

"Strange--it ish vonderful--vera goot!" exclaimed severally those to whom it was handed.

"He is not so wicked after all, then, schipper Schenk," said the warden.

The skipper shook his head, and replied mysteriously, "I vish I may alvays gif him a goot vide berth, datsh all, Mynheer Vorden, notmitstanding te Schietam."

"I can tell you a tale that will give you a different opinion, Master Warden," said an English mate, who formed one of the party of listeners.

"By all means let us hear it," said the warden, knocking the ashes from his pipe against his shoe, and refilling the bowl from a leathern pouch by his side wherein he was accustomed to carry a pound of loose Turkish cut.

"Ve vill lishten; tell it, skipper Jack," all cried, directing their eyes first down the bay to see if they could discover an approaching sail, and then turning and fixing them upon the face of the seaman.

"Well, s.h.i.+pmates," said the sailor, dropping from his mouth carefully into the palm of his hand a huge quid of tobacco, and sprinkling a shower of saliva over the pavement; "you see as how it was in the West Indies. Captain Kyd had captured a trader bound from Newport to Barbadoes, and, having taken out all the valuables, set fire to her, with every soul on board save a young gentleman and young lady--one being sweetheart to the other, you must know. These he took on board his vessel, the 'Ventur' Galley, and told the young lady, who was very rich, that if she would pay forty thousand dollars for her ransom, she should go free. So she went into the cabin with him, and wrote the order for the money. 'Now,' says she to him, 'I will not give it to you unless you promise to give me what I love best on earth.' 'Now,' says he to her, 'fair lady, what do you love best on earth?'

"'My betrothed husband,' said she.

"'Would you have his heart rather than all else in the world?' asked he.

"'Yes.'

"'I comply with your demand--but first you must dine with me,' said he.

"So a great dinner was served up, and only Kyd and the lady sat down to it--for he treated her with great respect all the time, and more like a gentleman than a bucanier. After they had dined, she said, 'Now grant me my wish, and let me have what I love best on earth.'

"'You have had it,' said he.

"'Where--what?' she asked, trembling all over at his fearful looks, and hardly knowing what to dread.

"'Your lover's heart.'

"'Where?' she asked.

"'You have just dined off of it,'" said he.

"What became of the lady?" asked the warden, after the exclamations of horror and surprise had subsided.

"She became a maniac, and in three days was buried in the sea," replied the narrator, replacing his quid and taking a hearty draught at a can of ale handed him by Frau Stoll herself.

"Donder ant blixen! I don't pelieve it--tish not true, I vould shwear,"

said the skipper. "He ish pad enough, put not so pad ash dat--tish one of te itle shtories tat peoplesh frighten von oder mit."

"'Tis said he always gets devil's luck, before he sails, from them as has dealings with the Evil One, and always burns a Bible on his capstan every time he weighs anchor," said the sailor, without regarding the incredulous skipper.

"The last time he was here, when he walked our streets so boldly, with a score of armed bucaniers at his back, before he set sail I heard how he got evil charms from the witch at h.e.l.l Gate," observed the warden, in a low, cautious tone.

"I can give ye a wrinkle on that point, I guess," said a lank, half-farmer, half-sailor looking being, who commanded a trader between the Rhode Island plantations and New-York--one of the first of the species now so numerous. "I anch.o.r.ed once, waiting for the flood tide to take me through the gate, close alongside the rock her hut is on.

Feeling kind o' neighbourly, and not knowin' then who lived there, I got into my yawl, and pulled ash.o.r.e to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance and talk a bit.

As I came up to the hut I heard a strange noise, and smelt a brimstonish smell, and so thought I'd reconnoitre afore goin' in. Looking through the window, I see the old Witch of Endor and Captain Kyd, as I learned a'terward it was, goin' through the awfullest h.e.l.lifications ever hearn tell on. She hanged a piece o' yarn round his neck, and then said as how he had a charmed life. Gracious! and the way it lightened and thundered jist then was a sin to death! Blue blazes an' brimstone--great guns and little guns--big devils and little devils, mixed up with owls and hobgoblins, snakes and catamounts, with a sprinkling o' h.e.l.l-cats and flying sarpents, touched off with the tarnellest yells, 'nough to lift a feller right off his feet by the hair of his head. I thought creation was comin' to an eend, and dropped down on my marrow-bones and prayed away like a disciple. Soon as I could get on my legs, I showed 'um some purty tall walkin' till I got to my yawl again, I tell ye! I expected nothin'd be left o' me when I got there but my eyebrows and s.h.i.+rt risbands."

"She is a fearful woman," said the warden; "and little thanks do we owe them for sending her among us. 'Tis said, before she was transported to the colony from Ireland, that she had spirited away by her foul charms the son of some n.o.ble house. Ill has fared the colony the three years she has been in't."

"She shoult pe purned for von vitch vooman," said the skipper; "I would pe te first to make te f.a.got plaze."

"I'll be there to help you a bit, I guess, too," said the Rhode Islander. "I han't been to Salemtown in New-England for nothin', I guess. The way they do with the critters there is a little the cutest.

If they want to tell for sartin if an old woman's a real witch, they throw her into a pond. If she's drownded she's no witch; but if she swims, its gospel proof she is--coz what old woman could swim if she warn't a nat'ral witch. They then tie her to a stake and set fire to her."

"Mit your leave, goot peoplesh, I vill shay vat dey doesh mit vitches in mine countree," said the Dutch burgher, deliberately taking the pipe from his mouth. "Virst, dey tries her py veighing her in te scales mit von Piple; if she be heavier nor te Piple, she ish prove von olt vitch voomans. Dis ish vera goot! Secont, dey tries to shoot her mit silver pulletsh, ant den dey tiesh her heelsh ant het bot' togedder, and drops her into te deep vater. Dat is alsho more vera goot!"

"What are ye gathered here for, ye idle knaves and fat burghers, ye ma.s.ses of smoked flesh--sponges steeped in ale--and paunches like your own pint-pots, frightening each other's cowardly ears with tales of fear. Who is it ye would kill with your silver bullet, Master Von Schmidt?"

The company started at the harsh, stern voice that addressed them so unexpectedly, and uttered, as they looked up, divers exclamations and interjections of surprise, not unmingled with apprehension. The warden rose from his wooden bench, and, hurrying away, disappeared quickly round the corner of the inn; the tallow-chandler upset his can of ale in his over-eagerness to gain the taproom; the burgher broke the long stem of his pipe by striking it against the door-sill as he crowded in on the tallow-chandler's heels; and on each countenance and in every gesture of those who remained was depicted consternation and anxiety.

The personage who had caused this sudden movement was a female of low stature, deformed and hideous in person, with a stern aspect, and a wild, restless eye--indeed, none other than Elpsy the sorceress.

Suspected of having made way with the young Lester--the illegitimate Lester--she had been arrested by the countess and thrown into prison.

But confessing nothing on trial, and the circ.u.mstances not being sufficient in themselves to convict her, after remaining in prison two years, she was sent, with other criminals and dangerous persons, to the colonies. Forbidden by the worthy burghers to harbour in the town, she had selected, as more in unison with her wild and wandering life, and the mysterious character she claimed, a lonely abode, once a fisherman's lodge, on the rocky islet on the right of the outlet of Hurl Gate, still known as the Witch's Rock. Here she performed her unholy rites, and far and wide her fame spread as a sorceress. Seamen, as they shot through the dangerous pa.s.s, propitiated her; and those who would have fair winds sought them of her in full faith. The good came to her for good, and the evil for evil. The tender Dutch maiden would do pilgrimage there to ask after the fate of an absent lover, or seek a.s.surances of his happy and speedy return. There were tales, too, that she favoured the bucaniers who swarmed the coasts, and that their success was owing to the heavy bribes of gold they gave her for prosperous cruises. Occasionally she visited the town, to the consternation of its worthy citizens, who never failed to presage evil to "scot and lot" from her presence.

"What is it ye fear, Master Warden--what is it leads ye to leave your bench, schipper--is't your own shadows ye fear?" she now cried, fixing her eyes darkly and angrily upon each countenance.

"It ish out ov reshpect, Frau Elpshy," replied the half-tipsy schipper, mustering his physical to the aid of his moral courage, and speaking in a deprecatory tone. "We knowsh your power, ant make reverensh to it by getting up, ash you say."

"Ye are a hypocritical and fear-stricken set, all of ye--ever gulping ale, ye have only ale courage. Jost Stoll, woman, give me a can of thy best Island spirits. I have walked far, and am athirst and weary."

The strong potation was given her by the reluctant hostess, who dared not refuse her demand, lest, in the evil that she would visit upon her hearth-stone and roof-tree, she might lose far more than the value of a goblet. The weird woman quaffed the beverage at a draught, and, placing the cup on the bench with an emphasis, turned and looked down the bay with a steady gaze. Every eye followed hers. The sun had just touched the hills of Jersey with his lower edge, and the evening haze lifting from the water gave a dimness to distant objects. For some seconds she continued to gaze, and then suddenly cried,

"He comes!"

"Sail ho!" instantly shouted the Rhode Islander. At the same moment, a universal exclamation from the observers upon the stoope showed that all eyes had discovered the object that had attracted the attention and caused the sudden outcry of the woman.

Far down the bay, near its junction with the sea, diminished to a mere speck by the distance, and appearing not bigger than a snow-flake floating above the water, or a white gull riding on the waves, a vessel was seen entering the Narrows and standing towards the town. Instantly all was excitement. The noise and rumour of its approach flew from the Rondeel on the south even to the wall on the north. The worthy citizens, attended by their fraus and their little folk, maids and matrons, old and young, black and white, slaves and Indians, and everything that had life in New-Amsterdam, a.s.sembled in front of Jost Stoll's inn, with their eyes directed down the bay. With a steady, onward course, the vessel came gallantly up the channel, and such was the way she made that she promised to drop anchor off against the fort ere the twilight should be deepened into night. Gradually, as she approached, her form and size began to grow more distinct to the eye, and her proportions to stand out clearer.

"She is a brig--but not the Ger-Falcon, I am thinking," said the warden, who had again taken his place among the crowd, his curiosity overcoming his superst.i.tious fears--albeit, he gave the sorceress a wide berth. Nor indeed was he alone in his aversion to her society; for every one present seemed instinctively to avoid her neighbourhood: so that she stood alone in an open s.p.a.ce before the inn, intently watching, without heeding those around her, the advancing sail.

"Vat oder prig can it pe, put te Sher-Falcon," said the skipper. "Dere ish none expected here till next Shaint Andrew's tay. De Barbadoesh packet vash just sail--de Glasgow merchantman ish not due till Christmash, and tere ish put one oder prig dat trade here, vich is gone to te Golt Coast for negroesh. 'Tis te Ger-Falcon, or te pucanier Kyt himself."

"Got forbid!" was the exclamation from every tongue.

"She should carry her colours boldly aloft if she were an honest trader," said the warden. "'Tis suspicious."