With Moorish
characters, the plunder of Kidd's eastern prize, but which the common
people took for diabolical or magic inscriptions.
Some reported the spoils to have been buried in solitary unsettled
places about Plymouth and Cape Cod; many other parts of the Eastern
coast, also, and various places in Long Island Sound, have been gilded
by these rumors, and have been ransacked by adventurous money-diggers.
In all the stories of these enterprises the devil played a conspicuous
part. Either he was conciliated by ceremonies and invocations, or some
bargain or compact was made with him. Still he was sure to play the
money-diggers some slippery trick. Some had succeeded so far as to
touch the iron chest which contained the treasure, when some baffling
circumstance was sure to take place. Either the earth would fall in and
fill up the pit or some direful noise or apparition would throw the
party into a panic and frighten them from the place; and sometimes the
devil himself would appear and bear off the prize from their very
grasp; and if they visited the place on the next day, not a trace would
be seen of their labors of the preceding night.
Such were the vague rumors which for a long time tantalized without
gratifying my curiosity on the interesting subject of these pirate
traditions. There is nothing in this world so hard to get at as truth.
I sought among my favorite sources of authentic information, the oldest
inhabitants, and particularly the old Dutch wives of the province; but
though I flatter myself I am better versed than most men in the curious
history of my native province, yet for a long time my inquiries were
unattended with any substantial result.
At length it happened, one calm day in the latter part of summer, that
I was relaxing myself from the toils of severe study by a day's
amusement in fishing in those waters which had been the favorite resort
of my boyhood. I was in company with several worthy burghers of my
native city. Our sport was indifferent; the fish did not bite freely;
and we had frequently changed our fishing ground without bettering our
luck. We at length anchored close under a ledge of rocky coast, on the
eastern side of the island of Manhata. It was a still, warm day. The
stream whirled and dimpled by us without a wave or even a ripple, and
every thing was so calm and quiet that it was almost startling when the
kingfisher would pitch himself from the branch of some dry tree, and
after suspending himself for a moment in the air to take his aim, would
souse into the smooth water after his prey. While we were lolling in
our boat, half drowsy with the warm stillness of the day and the
dullness of our sport, one of our party, a worthy alderman, was
overtaken by a slumber, and, as he dozed, suffered the sinker of his
drop-line to lie upon the bottom of the river. On waking, he found he
had caught something of importance, from the weight; on drawing it to
the surface, we were much surprised to find a long pistol of very
curious and outlandish fashion, which, from its rusted condition, and
its stock being worm-eaten and covered with barnacles, appeared to have
been a long time under water. The unexpected appearance of this
document of warfare occasioned much speculation among my pacific
companions. One supposed it to have fallen there during the
revolutionary war. Another, from the peculiarity of its fashion,
attributed it to the voyagers in the earliest days of the settlement;
perchance to the renowned Adrian Block, who explored the Sound and
discovered Block Island, since so noted for its cheese. But a third,
after regarding it for some time, pronounced it to be of veritable
Spanish workmanship.
"I'll warrant," said he, "if this pistol could talk it would tell
strange stories of hard fights among the Spanish Dons. I've not a doubt
but it's a relique of the buccaneers of old times."
"Like enough," said another of the party. "There was Bradish the
pirate, who at the time Lord Bellamont made such a stir after the
buccaneers, buried money and jewels somewhere in these parts or on
Long-Island; and then there was Captain Kidd - "
"Ah, that Kidd was a daring dog," said an iron-faced Cape Cod whaler.
"There's a fine old song about him, all to the tune of:
'My name is Robert Kidd,
As I sailed, as I sailed.'
And it tells how he gained the devil's good graces by burying the
Bible:
'I had the Bible in my hand,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
And I buried it in the sand,
As I sailed.'
Egad, if this pistol had belonged to him I should set some store by it
out of sheer curiosity. Ah, well, there's an odd story I have heard
about one Tom Walker, who, they say, dug up some of Kidd's buried
money; and as the fish don't seem to bite at present, I'll tell it to
you to pass away time."
THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER.
A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet
winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles
Bay, and terminating in a thickly-wooded swamp, or morass. On one side
of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land
rises abruptly from the water's edge, into a high ridge on which grow a
few scattered oaks of great age and immense size. It was under one of
these gigantic trees, according to old stories, that Kidd the pirate
buried his treasure.
