University of Virginia Library

2. NO. II.
THE LEGEND OF BRICK-HOUSE CREEK.

Whoever has paid a visit to the interesting country around
and about Jerusalem, has found a spot rich in legendary lore
and romantic story. I mean not the ancient city of the holy
land, but that modern Jerusalem, nigh unto Babylon, in the
southern part of Queens country, Long Island, which is commonly
distinguished and known as Jerusalem South. Here,
while that right good penman, Cornelius Van Tienhoven,
yet signed himself secretary of Niew Netherlands, ran the
division line between the domain of the Briton and the Hollander.
Here was the field of many a border skirmish, and
plundering foray; and the musket and the scalping-knife
gave frequent occupation to Dutchman, Indian and Yankee.
Here are still to be seen the remains of old Fort-Neck, where
Tackapuasha, the Marsapeague sachem, was constrained to
yield a sullen submission to the conquering arms of the new
settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts, under the command of
Deacon Tribulation Smith.[1] This was the place that was
wept over by the ministers of New-England, even as a mother
weepeth over her ailing infant, because the land was licentious,
and covered with a flood of manifold profaneness.[2] It
was the place afterwards designated by Governor Fletcher,
in his speech to the New-York Assembly, as a place needing
a schoolmaster and a minister, because he “didn't find any
provision had yet been made for propagating religion.”[3]

This, alas! is not all. It is grievous to add, that the
neighboring bays and inlets of the sea furnished sad temptations
to maritime speculations, which they who were so fortunate
as to have money enough of their own, affected to
esteem of rather equivocal morality, and which the pressure
of the times and the necessities of the people made in many
instances very persuasive, ay, almost irresistible.

Not that the Jerusalemites were absolutely all pirates.
That is a hard name, and one that carries with it the idea
of blood and robbery. But people must live; and if a man
has his crops all cut off or stolen, or if his house and barn
are burned down by the savages, he must, as a matter of
course, look out for some other means of livelihood; and certain
it is, that about these times, many worthy gentlemen invested
much property in divers small craft, yclept brigantines
and cutters, wherewith they scoured the sea, paying visits
unto other vessels, and carrying on a general trade, after a
very wholesale and extensive fashion. Goodly revenues are
said to have been derived from the business, and the names
of many great men and lords were enrollod on the books of
the concerns, as sleeping partners. The excellent historian
of New-York tells us, that Captain Kidd had for his associates
Lord Chancellor Somers, the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls
of Romney and Oxford, and other equally illustrious individuals.[4]
The fact speaks much for the honor of the trade; and
we should be careful how we indulge in harsh nomenclature
of gentlemen engaged in it, seeing that it met the sanction
and protection of the rulers of the land.

No place was better calculated for a depot and a sally-port,
than the bays of Matowacs, as Long Island was then properly
called. It was so easy to run out and run in; and pro

visions, and equipments, and men, were so handy to be got,
and there were such good safe harbors, where you might lie
and keep a watch over the beach; so that if a French barque
from Martinique, or a Dutchman from Surinam, or, in short,
any vessel with which it might be desirable to have a little
trade, hove in sight, you could up sail, and be on the spot in
ten minutes. There are many relics, and many curious stories
of these expeditions. The historian before mentioned,
speaking of the said water merchants with rather too much
abruptness, says; “It is certain that the pirates were supplied
with provisions by the people of Long Island, who for
many years afterwards were so infatuated with a notion that
they buried great quantities of money along the coast, that
there is scarce a point of land on the island, without the marks
of their `auri sacra fames.' Some credulous people have
ruined themselves by these researches, and propagated a
thousand idle fables current to this day among our country
farmers.”[5]

One of the most distinguished of the brotherhood, whose
names have come down to posterity, was old Thomas Johnson,
otherwise, and more familiarly and commonly called, old
Colonel Tom. He was a man of unquestioned courage and
talent; and though every body knew that his clipper-built
little schooner carried a six pounder and a military chest, for
some other purpose than mere self-defence, yet there was
not the man who was more respected, and walked abroad
more boldly than that same Colonel Tom. He had the best
farm too, and lived in the best and the only brick-house in all
Queens county. This venerable edifice is still standing,
though much dilapidated, and is an object of awe to all the

people in the neighborhood. The traveller cannot fail to be
struck with its reverend and crumbling ruins, as his eye first
falls upon it from the neighboring turnpike; and if he has
heard the story, he will experience a chilly sensation, and
draw a hard breath, while he looks at the circular, sashless
window, in the gable-end. That window has been left open
ever since the old colonel's death. His sons and grandsons
used to try all manner of means in their power to
close it up, so as to keep out the rain and snow in winter,
and to preserve, moreover, the credit of the mansion.
They put in sashes, and they boarded it up, and they bricked
it up, but all would not do; so soon as night came, their
work would be destroyed. A thunder shower was sure to
come up, and the window would be struck with lightning, and
the wood or brick burned up, or broken to pieces; and strange
sights would be seen, and awful voices heard, and bats, and
owls, and chimney-swallows be screaming and flapping
about. So they gave it up, concluding that as this window
looked into the colonel's bedroom, his ghost wanted it left
open for him to revisit the old tenement, without being
obliged to insinuate himself through a crack or a key-hole.

The location of the said domicil is romantic. A beautiful
little stream comes out of a grassy grove in its rear, and after
meandering pleasantly by its side, and more than half encircling
it, shoots away, and crossing the road under the cover
of a close thicket, a little distance off, gradually swells into
a goodly creek, and rolls on its waters to the bay. The
extraordinary material and uncommon grandeur of the colonel's
tenement, very properly gave to this stream the distinguishing
appellation of Brick-house creek. It is a quiet,
innocent looking piece of water, as ever dimpled; yet does no
market-man drive his eel-wagon across that creek, of a Saturday

night, without accelerating the speed of his team, by a
brisk application of the whip; or without singing or whistling,
peradventure, a good loud stave. This is no impeachment
of the courage of eel merchants; for any man is justifiable
in keeping as far off from a burying-ground as possible;
and in fearful truth, when the passing hoof makes the
first heavy splash into this stream, of a dark night, it is ten
chances to one that the sleepy driver will see a dull, sulphureous
flame start up, a few hundred yards to his left,
from the spot where lie deposited the mortal remains of old
Colonel Tom. That spot is the place of all places for the
grave of a man who loved the water during his lifetime.
It is a little hillock, lying immediately on the edge of the
creek, which always keeps its sides cool and green, and, in
the spring tides, overflows its very summit. Sportsmen
know the place as a peculiar haunt of the largest trout.
Often have I felt the truth and force of old Izaak Walton's
doctrines about piety and running brooks, when kneeling on
that knoll, silent and almost breathless, I have thrown a
quivering May fly, “fine and far off,” below the last circle
that broke the watery mirror before me. And then, when I
had become weary of the excitement, or “the school was
broke up,” it was luxury to stretch myself out on the good
green grass, and lean my rod against one of the tombstones,
and decipher the almost obliterated epitaphs.

No man dare, no man can be irreverend here. Independently
of the associations and the stories about the place, the
very locality, the air, the ground, the water, make one sentimentally
and seriously disposed in spite of himself—excepting,
always, in mosquito time. In ancient days, if Jim
Smith and Daniel Wanza—who always killed more fish than
any two men in the county—spoke of trying Brickhouse creek,

they always did it with a thoughtful, solemn visage, as though
they were talking of going to jail, or a funeral. And well they
might; for they were soaking their villainous ground-bait there
one afternoon, when a Yorker, who had been lashing the waters
with all manner of entomological excerpts from his fishing-book
for tedious hours, at last struck a glorious three-pounder.
“By heavens,” he ejaculated in the transports of
his delight, “I've got a good one.” But the words were no
sooner out of his mouth, than the fish was off his hook. The
ground heaved underneath them; a low, rumbling noise was
heard; a few drops of rain fell, and Daniel said he smelt sulphur
very plainly.

But Saturday night used to be the time to go down to the
creek to see sights. That was the time when the old pirate
was sure to have a frolic. There are many most credible people
who remember repeatedly seeing his little schooner dashing
across the bay with her full complement of men and arms,
sailing right into the eye of the wind; while every now and
then the crew's uplifted right hands showed each a brimming
goblet, and the air smelt of Jamaica spirits, and then rung with
a hoarse hurrah. Just at dawn the schooner would make up
Brick-house creek, and run into the grave yard and vanish.

When Jaac Spragg first went down to Hungry harbor to
live—this was a good many years ago—he used to laugh at all
these stories. His aunt Chastity often took him to task, and
told him he'd be sorry for his want of faith one day or other;
but Jaac stuck to his infidelity, and once he even went so far
as to say, that “he'd be hang'd if he wouldn't like to come
across this same Colonel Tom.” Ben Storer was standing by
and heard that speech, and offered Jaac to wager him a quart
of rum he wouldn't dare to go eeling the next Saturday night
alone, down in the bay below Brick-house creek.

Jaac laughed, and took the bet at once. Saturday night
came, and his skiff, jack, and firewood were all ready.

Now, as the word “jack” is not to be found in any but icthyological
dictionaries, it shall be the glory, as it is the duty
of the faithful narrator of this authentic legend, here to explain
its signification, and to introduce it into good society.
“Jack” is an English abbreviation of the Latin “jaculum,”
which signifies anything that may be shot or thrown. This
is the definition given by the learned Varro, whose words—as
the scholar will remember—are “jaculum dicitur, quod ut jaciatur,
fit.” The Roman fishermen, in the time of Augustus,
applied the word precisely as do our modern piscators. Thus
Horace, in his ode to Grosphus, goes out of his way to pay himself
a compliment for his own skill with the eel-spear—

It consists of a series of sharp iron prongs or forks, barbed
and headed, united in a straight cross piece, and secured,
nailed, or otherwise fastened, upon a light wooden rod or pole,
fifteen or twenty feet long. It may be likened, above all things
else, to a three-pronged pitchfork, save that a pitchfork hath
no barb, and that the eel-spear is calculated to catch eels, and
the pitchfork to toss hay and sinners, which are not so slippery.
The distinction is very happily expressed by Quintilian,
in the word “abrupta”—“abrupta quædam jaculantur.”
This said jack, then, being thrust with vehement force at the
fishy victim, apprehends him in his muddy course, and brings
him, wounded and squirming, out of his element. Night is
the best time for this amusement, as you can then have the
benefit of the light of a good fire to stream upon the water, and
attract and dazzle your prey. The brightest fire is made by old

pine knots, which you ignite in the bottom of your boat upon a
fire-place of large flat stones. The light, thus kindled, is called
a “jack-o'-lantern,” from the word “jaculantur,” above quoted,
expressive of the act of throwing the spear; and the word
thus originally formed, is now common to every schoolboy in
the country as the name of any wild fiery shoot or exhalation.

Midnight arrived, and found Jaac on the bow of his skiff,
faithfully shoving about the flats below Brick-house creek, as
unconcerned as though he had never heard of pirate Johnson,
or what is more, as if he had no rum at stake upon his night's
adventure. Jaac was always a bold, reckless fellow, and for
fear of accidents, and the night being cool, he had fortified his
inner man upon this occasion, with a spiritual coat of mail,
which made him courageous enough to face the d—l himself.

The time was come to try his pluck. A stranger made his
appearance through the murky shade, and paddling his old
shattered boat alongside of Jaac's skiff, presented in the glare
of the jack-light an object of fear and admiration. He was
tall, muscular, sun-browned, large-featured, and lank-jawed.
His eyes of piercing black were set far back under tremendous
arches of overhanging eye-brows. His long, strait, black
hair fell in every direction from under a naval chapeau-debras,
which was evidently much the worse for the wear. He
was booted to the thighs, and his body was wrapped in a pea-jacket,
tied about his waist with a piece of old rope. Around
his neck was hung a speaking-trumpet, and a pistol handle
peeped from either outside breast-pocket.

“Hilloa, mister, is that you?” He sung out in a familiar,
good-natured tone to Jaac, as he struck his oar into the mud,
and held on.

Now, any ordinary man would have been frightened out of
his wits, by this salutation. But Jaac, although he felt rather

queer,—for it run in his head immediately that this might be
the old colonel,—answered the new-comer's question without
the least trepidation.

“Hilloa, yourself, stranger, I don't know you.” Conversation
at once commenced; conducted without reserve, and with
some shrewdness on the part of Jaac; but all that he was able
to get from the man with the cap, was, that he lived up the
creek, and had come down to catch a mess of eels. Jaac
knew that there was no living man like him that had his habitation
about those parts;—as for ghosts he began to have his
doubts. But he was nothing daunted. He talked to old Pea-jacket
like a catechism-book; and quite a familiarity began to
be established. After a while, the stranger yawned, and said he
believed it was time for him to go to work, so he asked Jaac
for a light to set his jack-a-lantern a-going. Jack handed him
a fire-brand, which the new comer stooping down, touched to
some fire-works in the centre of his boat; and immediately up
there started two long greenish shoots of flame, edged with
black streaks. It was enough to make the stoutest heart
quail; for the light was oppressive to the eyes, and there was
an almost choking smoke, and the fire-place was nothing else
than a human skull, and the two streams of flame came from
the eyeless sockets!

The old colonel—for it was evident now that it was he—
having got all ready, took up his jack, which had only one
prong—but that was very sharp, and with a long barb—and
began his sport. Jaac had not yet trembled a jot; but now it
made his hair stand on end, to see the old man catch eels.
When his arrow-like weapon struck the water, there was a
hissing sound, as though the iron was hot; and every eel that
was drawn out, winding and writhing on the fatal point,
screamed and cried as he came into the air, like a little child.

The old man shook them off, however, and said nothing. He
seemed to be very expert, and presently there was such a
squalling and roaring in his boat that one would have thought
all the children in Erebus had paid a visit to the bay. The
noise at last seemed to disturb the colonel himself; for he
turned around all of a sudden, and swore at the slimy musicians
a loud big oath; when they immediately left off crying
and began whistling. Jaac used to say that he'd “take his
affidavit of the fact, that they whistled a leetle ahead of old
Caspar Van Sinderen's niggars; and they're the best whistlers
on Long Island, by all odds.” It set him a laughing, though,
and he was quaking, and trembling, and laughing all at the
same time, for half an hour, so that he lost all hopes of holding
himself together much longer; when a gun was heard
down among the breakers, in the direction of Gilgoa inlet.

“A ship on shore—by God!” exclaimed the old colonel;
and he threw down his jack, stamped out his light, kicked his
eels overboard, and paddled up towards Jaac. There was a
fierce and determined rigidness of the muscles of his face; his
teeth were set; his fists clenched; and his eye shot out a
terrible gleam, that made Jaac wither away before him. He
pulled alongside.

“Jaac,” said he; and then he stopped short; fixing his
keen, savage eyes upon the almost blinded vision of the poor
fisherman, and looking with intense gaze into his face, for
more than a minute as though he would read his very soul.

At length relaxing his features, as if satisfied with the investigation
he proceeded; “Jaac, I like you; you are a brave
man; and I will make your fortune.” He then went on and
told him that he was satisfied that there was a ship in the
breakers, and he proposed that they should row down and get
aboard, and kill the crew, and passengers, and secure the

cargo. The proposition was so bluntly made, and so startling,
Jaac could make no reply. The old man seeing that he had
been too fast, sat down and began to reason about it.

Alas! alas! for human nature, that the god-like exercise of
the mind should make him a villain, who ignorant, had been
innocent! The wise man said truly, that “in much wisdom
is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth
sorrow.” It was the serpent's subtle reasoning, and poor
Eve's simple thinking that accomplished the first transgression.
Every thorough-bred felon is a skilful, although he be
an unsound logician. He can, at the least, find a reason or
an excuse for his conduct, which himself, who is the only
judge in the case, will readily determine to be good and sufficient.
Were there not always some “flattering unction” to
be laid to the souls of incipient transgressors, vice would have
few, perhaps no willing proselytes.

What said the old colonel to Jaac that could reconcile piracy
and murder to his conscience? Why, he took for his
text the speech made to Alexander by the Mediterranean pirate
brought in chains before him; and commented most Dale
—Owenistically upon natural rights, and abstract good, and
evil, and faith, and evidence, and property, and poverty, and
oppression; until Jaac's brains were all in a whirl.

“If all men are born free and equal,” argued the tempter,
“what right have those rich merchants to possess broadcloths,
and silks, and specie, while you have none? And if they
will not willingly give you your share, haven't you a right to
take it yourself? And if they resist you with force, haven't
you a right to kill them in self-defence? And what if the
law forbid you—what is the law? Is not that law against
the constitution of human nature, which takes a poor man's
share in the goods of this world, and gives it to the rich?

And are not greater crimes perpetrated every day, according
to law, than offences are committed against law? And after
all, what does this `virtue' consist in, but in the not being
found out? Answer me that;”—concluded the old casuist,
with emphasis; and he stuck his fists into his sides, and threw
back his head with an air of triumph.

Jack scratched his consideration-cap, and though he did
not wholly relish the morals of his rapid instructor, yet he
could urge not a doubt nor a query upon the behalf of his forlorn
virtue. Was it cowardice, or was it principle that made
him hesitate?

“Come, take a horn,” pursued the cunning old seducer,
“and cheer your spirits up. You'll be none the worse for
a little steam this chilly night.”

Shall we stop here, and read a homily on temperance?
No, no, let every moral follow its own story.

Jaac took the proffered jug, and being really very thirsty
after his long excitement, he drank a good long drink, before
he tasted what kind of liquor it was. At last he stopped, and
shrieking out, as if in pain, he beseeched the colonel for some
water, for the old rascal had given him something raw, that
burned him just as though it were molten lead.

The colonel told him he never kept such stuff, but advised
him to cool his throat with a little of his own rum. Jaac did
so, and he always said that it was like so much cold water,
in comparison with the spiritual beverage to which his companion
had treated him.

It was not long before the co-operation of persuasion and
liquid fire had gained for Colonel Tom a willing coadjutor in
his projected expedition. Jaac's eyes began to swell, and
burn, and he felt a vigor in his arm, and a fierceness in his
heart, which he never knew before. He started up in his

boat, and crying, “I'll go—I'll go—lead on,” he led the way
himself.

On they pulled towards the inlet, in grim and death-like
silence, while another, and yet another gun flashed upon the
sky in the south-east, and illuminated the way to the scene
of distress.

A half an hour's row brought them into full view of a
noble galleon, heaving and pitching, and beating her racked
and groaning sides upon a high sand-bank, about a quarter
of a mile from the beach. The wind was blowing a gale,
and the angry waves washed over her decks, and the cordage
creaked, and her white sails all standing fluttered and
veered, as if the crew were so frozen that they could not
pull a rope. Just as they turned the point of the inlet, her
jib was blown clean off, and fell into the water. Then up
rose a wild cry of terror from the wrecked wretches on board.
It was enough to melt a heart of stone.

Just then the moon gleamed out from behind a black cloud,
and discovered our two cut-throat friends. It was a gleam
of hope and joy to the perishing crew; “thank God! there's
help,” went up from many a happy heart.

“Bring us a rope from shore,” sung out the captain of the
ship; “we're going to pieces.”

The colonel, with all the coolness in the world, took up
his speaking-trumpet, and in a voice above the multitudinous
uproar of the elements, answered, “ay, ay, sir, we are coming.
Hold on.”

“Now, Jaac,” said he, bending over towards his pupil,
“take this cutlass, and when we get alongside, fasten your
skiff to the ship, follow me, and go to work. Kill them all
—every soul of them.”

Although Jaac was now possessed of the soul of a demon,

yet he half repented of his undertaking. But it was of no use
at this late hour. His destiny controlled him—he had gone
too far to retreat.

“Where's the rope?” said the captain, leaning over the
ship's side, as they came up.

“Here it is,” answered the colonel, discharging a pistol
into his right eye, and leaping with a supernatural bound upon
the deck, Jaac followed at a slow pace, and found the colonel
cutting and slashing away, with great spirit and activity. The
passengers were all down in the cabin, at prayers, but the
crew were running about the deck, pursued by the old man,
and screaming for mercy and quarter. Some ran up the
shrouds, others sought the stern or the bowsprit, the long-boat
or the hen-coop, and three or four poor fellows made
their escape up to the cross-trees. But it was of no use.
The old man pursued, and cut them down every where, and
in every fashion; and at one time the men fell from the masthead
thick as hail. Jack stood still, not exactly in horror but
in amazement. The excitement of the tragedy was glorious,
but almost too acute for comfort. He was like a living dead
man. He could neither act nor speak. He felt within him
all the fire of a murderer; but he did'nt know how to begin.
perhaps, it was because he had never yet drawn blood. He
struggled hard, but could not move his hands. While laboring
in this distress, the colonel came running up to him, mad
enough to tear him to pieces, and asked him “what he was
standing there for, idle?”

Jaac started and looked round for a man to kill, but there
was not a living soul left on deck. So, being willing to do
all he could, he picked up a sailor, whom the colonel had cut
down with a sabre gash across his head, and who was not

quite dead, and carried him to the ship's side and threw him
overboard.

“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted the old gentleman, taking off his
chapeau, and wiping on it the blood that was dripping from
his hands. “Well done for a new beginner. But come, my
boy, there's more work to do. Let's take a drink, and go
and attend to the women, in the cabin. We'll finish our frolic
there, and then see if there's any specie aboard. Drink, drink,
my boy, and hurry, for the ship will go apart soon.”

The mad potation was renewed, and Jaac raved for blood.
One blow with his foot threw the cabin-door off its hinges,
and one bound brought him into the room where the miserable
passengers, men, women, and children were huddled all
together. They were all upon their knees, and one old grey-headed
man was praying aloud, with great fervency. They
gave a terrible shriek, as Jaac and the colonel rushed in, and
crowded like cattle in a slaughter-yard, into a corner of the
cabin, offering no resistance against their murderers.

The colonel very quietly took a seat upon a sea-chest, and
stretching out his arms, gaped long and lazily, and complaining
of fatigue, told Jaac that he must kill these folks.

“Certainly, sir;” said Jaac, and he dashed at the crowd,
cutlass in hand. But some how or other, he couldn't either
strike straight, or else he couldn't get up close enough, or
else, fierce as he felt, he didn't, after all, want to draw blood;
for he kept thrusting and slashing for a long time, and he
didn't touch hide or hair.

“Go ahead, Jaac,” cried the colonel, sharply. “It's getting
late, and we've no time to spare.”

Jaac sprang at the bidding of that awful voice, and dropping
his cutlass, threw himself upon the grey-headed man above
mentioned, and pulling him out into the centre of the cabin,

by the hair of his head, he took fair ground, and squared off
at him with his fists; then drawing back his sinewy arm,
until his knuckles were close to his chin, he hit him a smasher
of a blow, in the left cheek, and knocked him down.

“I'll stand by that lick,” said the old man chuckling. “He
won't rise again.” The grey-headed passenger was dead.

On rushed the initiated murderer. The spell was broken
that had tied his hands. He had shed blood, and was now
insatiate as his demoniac instructor. He swung aloft his
cutlass over the head of the next wretch who came in his
way, and who happened to be a pale young man, dressed in
black, with spectacles, and who looked like a doctor, or a
lawyer. But, just as the death-bringing weapon was descending
in its swift course, upon its devoted victim, a new figure
made his appearance in the scene, and brought salvation where
before there was not even hope. This was none other than
a large Newfoundland dog, who had before contented himself
with howling, but who, now that danger threatened his master
so imminently, seemed to acquire a new impulse. He
sprang at the breast of Jaac, and fixed his long, sharp teeth
deep into his flesh. The pain was severe, but Jaac dropped
his cutlass, and clasping his hands around his assailant's
neck, throttled him off, and strangled him with the ease that
he would have crushed a caterpillar. The beautiful animal
fell lifeless from his grasp.

The next person Jaac laid hold of was a young woman, of
about seventeen years of age. She was a beautiful creature,
and her long hair was all dishevelled, and her blue eyes
streamed with a flood of pearly drops, and she fell on the
floor, and clung to Jaac's knees, and looked up in his face
with such a piteous expression that a very d—I would have
spared her life.

“Don't kill that girl, Jaac,” cried the colonel, “I want
her. Stab that old woman.”

“Want her, sir?” replied Jaac, with a hesitating look, at
the old reprobate.

“Want her, sir?” iterated the pirate in a voice of thunder.
“Ay, don't you see she is pretty? Ha! ha! ha!” and he
laughed that infernal laugh again.

“Oh! spare me, spare me,” cried the fair victim—“save me
from that worse than demon; or have pity, and strike your
knife into my heart. Is there no mercy for a helpless girl?
Have you a sister or a wife? think—oh! think of her!”

Jaac relaxed his grasp; a cold chill ran over him, the perspiration
stood upon his brow, and he was near fainting on
the spot. He had been married only about a year before,
and to a girl so like — it must, it must have been her sister.
He dropped his hands by his sides, and looked down
with a vacant gaze at the lovely petitioner. The appeal was
too much for him—he forgot his master, and saw and knew
nothing but the face before him, which, strange to say, became
every moment more and more painfully familiar. As
she urged her appeal more earnestly, and passionately, pleading
with a voice well accustomed to his ear, a mist seemed to
fall from his eyes—his virtue returned to him—he could not
weep, but he groaned aloud; could it be? that countenance!
those eyes! that voice! “oh save me, save me, my husband!”
shrieked the poor conscious girl, and Jaac in agony clasped
to his breast his own darling faithful wife.

The old colonel did not seem to relish much this discovery,
or the change of conduct on the part of Jaac. He cursed him
for a tender-hearted chicken, and commanded him, with a
savage voice, to “hand over the girl to him.”

“It's my wife, sir,” said Jaac, suppliantly.

“What of that? you fool!” replied the colonel, advancing
towards the clinging couple.

Jaac had no idea of surrendering his young consort to the
gloating old rascal so readily; so he picked up his cutlass,
and made at him. He could strike, now, fair and hard, and
he gave good blows too; but they went through his antagonist
just as though he were a cloud. The colonel stood still,
laughing at him, in his fiendish fashion; and he let Jaac cut
him through and through, up and down, and crossways; still
there he stood, sound, and whole, and laughing.

Well at last he stopped short, and swore he wouldn't wait
any longer, and drawing a pistol from his pocket, he struck
Jaac with the stock a blow on the temples that sent him reeling
against the opposite lockers; at the same time he seized
the fainting girl, and bearing her utterly senseless, upon his
left arm, he hurried up the companion-way and disappeared.

Jaac was on his feet again in a twinkling, and in hot and
close pursuit. The spectre pirate was just shoving off from
the ship as he threw himself over her side, so that he was
only a few strokes of an oar behind. Then was rowed the
goodliest-boat race, and for the richest prize, too, that the
country has ever seen. The “Raynortown Standard,” in
giving an account of the contest remarked that the odds were
decidedly in favor of the colonel at the start, for he was not
only ahead, but he carried the least weight, being considerably
ethereal himself, and not weighing over a quarter of a
pound at the utmost, and having aboard, in addition, only Jaac's
wife and his fire skull, that together would not raise a ton;
while Jaac, on the contrary, was over a hundred and fifty
himself, and had at least twenty pounds of stone, besides his
eels, and a very heavy heart to pull with. This inequality
however, was somewhat compensated by the difference of the

boats. The colonel's was broad and loggy, and looked for
all the world like Charon's old ferry-er, and leaked so badly
that Mrs. Spragg's frock got quite wet. But Jaac's was a
trim, clean, long, narrow, tight, beautiful skiff. She walked
over the top of the waves, flinging back their combing edges
like the foam from the neck of a gallant racer, or like the long
flowing hair of a country maiden, parted on her forehead, and
blown back by the wanton, dallying wind. She seemed to
live and feel the honor of the contest, and to anticipate the
glory of a victory. The husband fast gained upon the ravisher.
Two to one were freely bet by the sympathizing mermaids
that the pirate would be overtaken. The mermen, who
took the odds, had to interfere to prevent foul play, and to
keep the ladies from pushing Jaac along. Presently the
pirate shot ahead, and created an awful distance between
him and the despairing Jaac. When, joy! joy! in his eager
speed, he left the safe channel and ran hard upon a sand bar.
This good fortune brought up the lost distance of the skiff,
and Jaac could almost touch the pirate-craft with his oar,
when out jumped the old colonel, and, with superhuman force,
dragged her out of his reach across the bar, and launched her
into the opposite channel. This manœuvre threw the fisherman
completely off the course, and he was obliged to back
water, and go around the point of the bar. Now came the
time for the last desperate struggle. West island, and Wanza's
flat, and the Squaw islands, were all passed, and strait
before the panting oarsman lay the spectre-pirate's home.
There was the creek, glittering in the moon-beams, looking
so virtuous and so happy, and there was the little hillock soon
to swallow up—nay, nay, one struggle more—Jaac looked to
the east, but not a streak of light was yet to be seen. He
strained with a desperate exertion. In vain, in vain;—the
pirate glided from him at tenfold speed, and a rescue was impossible.
Like a vapor the spectre-skiff swept around the
bend of the creek, and disappeared behind the high bank.
Jaac saw no more; a long piteous scream fell upon his ear,
and he became insensible of further suffering.

How long our adventurous friend lay in that condition, it is
impossible to tell. But the next afternoon, some of his neighbors
who knew of the bet, and felt anxious on account of his
not returning, went out to look for him. They found him in
the bottom of his boat, fast asleep, high and dry, on a mud flat
near Gin island. It seems that after he came to himself, he
fell asleep from mere exhaustion, and drifted with the tide to
the spot where he was discovered. When they waked him
up he was quite stupid, and had a very confused, misty sort
of imagination, as to where he was and what he had been
about. To such an extent does bodily exertion and mental
distress weaken and reduce poor mortals! When he was
told that his wife was very much distressed about him, and
was at home crying and wringing her hands, about the probable
consequences of his fool-hardiness, the poor man was
almost disposed to believe that he had been drunk or dreaming.
Like a prudent man, however, he said nothing, but
steered for his house as soon as possible, and went to bed.
The neighbors saw from Jaac's mysterious manner, that something
had been the matter, and the report soon got around that
Jaac had had an interview with old Colonel Tom.

The next day Jaac was more cool and collected, and he
remembered all the occurrences of that fearful night with
great accuracy and minuteness. He related the whole matter,
without any reserve or hesitation, declaring that he
thought it his duty to confess, and that he couldn't die happy
unless he unburdened his mind, and that if he must swing for

it, he couldn't help it. The good people listened to his recital
with fear, and horror, and pity. Three justices met
and took his examination, but the thing never went any further.
Some say that the state's attorney entered a nolle prosequi
on the account of Jaac's wife swearing she was home
all that night, which made an alibi, and that's enough to kill
any indictment. Others, again wink their eye and look
knowing, and say that Jaac was under a high pressure of
steam that night. But this was a scandalous insinuation,
made, no doubt, by some of the friends of Ben Storer, who
lost the bet. On the whole it is a very mysterious affair.
There's a good deal to be said on both sides, as there is in
fact about every thing else. As for myself, sometimes, I believe
it, and then again I don't believe it, but I think I have
always believed the greatest part of it. But that's the end of
the legend.