Just then there was a shout of victory from the main deck.
"The ship is ours!" cried the pirates.
One of the Dons immediately dropped his sword and surrendered; the
other, who was a hot-headed youngster, and just married, gave the
captain a slash in the face that laid all open. The captain just made
out to articulate the words "no quarter."
"And what did they do with their prisoners?" said Peechy Prauw,
eagerly.
"Threw them all overboard!" said the merman.
A dead pause followed this reply. Peechy Prauw shrunk quietly back like
a man who had unwarily stolen upon the lair of a sleeping lion. The
honest burghers cast fearful glances at the deep scar slashed across
the visage of the stranger, and moved their chairs a little farther
off. The seaman, however, smoked on without moving a muscle, as though
he either did not perceive or did not regard the unfavorable effect he
had produced upon his hearers.
The half-pay officer was the first to break the silence; for he was
Continually tempted to make ineffectual head against this tyrant of the
seas, and to regain his lost consequence in the eyes of his ancient
companions. He now tried to match the gunpowder tales of the stranger
by others equally tremendous. Kidd, as usual, was his hero, concerning
whom he had picked up many of the floating traditions of the province.
The seaman had always evinced a settled pique against the red-faced
warrior. On this occasion he listened with peculiar impatience. He sat
with one arm a-kimbo, the other elbow on a table, the hand holding on
to the small pipe he was pettishly puffing; his legs crossed, drumming
with one foot on the ground and casting every now and then the side
glance of a basilisk at the prosing captain. At length the latter spoke
of Kidd's having ascended the Hudson with some of his crew, to land his
plunder in secrecy.
"Kidd up the Hudson!" burst forth the seaman, with a tremendous oath;
"Kidd never was up the Hudson!"
"I tell you he was," said the other. "Aye, and they say he buried a
quantity of treasure on the little flat that runs out into the river,
called the Devil's Dans Kammer."
"The Devil's Dans Kammer in your teeth!" cried the seaman. "I tell you
Kidd never was up the Hudson - what the plague do you know of Kidd and
his haunts?"
"What do I know?" echoed the half-pay officer; "why, I was in London at
the time of his trial, aye, and I had the pleasure of seeing him hanged
at Execution Dock."
"Then, sir, let me tell you that you saw as pretty a fellow hanged as
ever trod shoe leather. Aye!" putting his face nearer to that of the
officer, "and there was many a coward looked on, that might much better
have swung in his stead."
The half-pay officer was silenced; but the indignation thus pent up in
his bosom glowed with intense vehemence in his single eye, which
kindled like a coal.
