University of Virginia Library

SECTION II.—Concluded.

“Defiendene de me!—trades over—sharks are abroad
as thick as shoals on the banks,” said the buccaneer,
drawing himself close to the Hollander, and leaning familiarly
on his arquebuss—after, however, having first
glanced cautiously around to assure himself there was none
near to observe what might pass; “commissions are out
that will make your friend Jacob Liesler shake in his
leathern breeches like a rogue in the bilboes. Carra!
there has not been such ill news abroad since we missed
the Mocca fleet in Bab's Key—if the world should tack in
these courses our capsterns will not longer stretch our
orders,[45] nor a caballero andante ship 'cept under the
king's proclamation. Cielo! but I am one never down
hearted while there is a rope to hang hope to, or a breeze
to blow us clear of breakers—so drown care as they say
on the main, bien vengas—si vengas solo.”

“Mien Got! ik sall be ver zorrie—dat is in mien
hertz,” replied Sporus in a tone with which he meant to
commiserate—but there was little soothing in the sound
of his voice, which rather resembled the hoarse and guttural
growlings of some cross grained mastiff; “ja!” pursued
he, drawing a long breath from his pipe, and then
sending the smoke slowly voided from his mouth in the

face of his companion—“ja, hoe does all dis gebueren—
dat is, vat does it come vrom—ja! tish nien goot—tish
nien goot—mien Got!” and then slowly and dolorously
shaking his head as if to show the depth of his foreboding,
he drew the pipe from his lips, and with a forceful blow he
sent forth a volume of smoke that had for a long while
been concentrating in the huge corners and monstrous
cavities of his hollow jaws.

“Guardate! dont run out a false colour, hermano; I
know your rigging too well for a wrong chase,” answered
Eumet, while a smile of derision passed across his dark
and sunburnt features, “the Spaniards say `todo arbol se
conoce per su fruto,'[46] and, picaron, I have sailed life's
ocean too long not to tell a shark by his teeth—but come
Dutchman,” added he, clapping Vanderspeigl on the
shoulder so stoutly that he crouched from the touch,
wincing with pain. “Yo te amo—that is, I love thee—
and now's your time to return favours, or damn me I
shall give you a salt eel for supper—for as I just let you
know, all's going by the board;—d'ye hear me—I am
without a copper.”

“Ja!—Ik dort as mush!” groaned the Netherlander,
his jocund shaped face losing its rotundity, and the long
bushy brows that overhung his little grey sleepy eyes
moving simultaneously together and darkening in an anxious
frown.

“I'm a mendigo, stript as bare as the poles in an hurricane,”
continued the rover, “so d'ye see, I'm come to
lighten your locker of part of its ballast:—there's my
share of the yellow boys, the booty of the Scudder merchantman,[47]
—how say you knave—que no respondeis—
give me an order for an hundred pieces of eight on the
house in Nieuw Amsterdam—it will set me apiè-afloat
as gallant as a galleon.”

“Mien goot Got!—dou be'est craze—mad as ish von
littel hares in de sbring dime,” exclaimed Vanderspeigl,
raising his hands in the utmost astonishment, “vone hondred

bieces von eight, bresarve me!—Got tam!” he
added testily, his choler fast rising, “dou dinks ik is all
geldt. Sapperment! ik hab nien stuyver in vone gorner
von mien broeks—ja! ik ish vone zeer boor mensch—dat
ish as bad zo as vone rotten haaring dat dey give der
hond.”

This petulancy did not, however, have the desired effect,
or stop the marauder's demands; for ere Sporus had
well ended his explanation, he strode within a foot of him
and gazed sternly in his face.

“Come swabber, overhaul your chests,” said the pirate
abruptly, in a sneering voice, “how many doubloons
have you laid by from that cargo, after cheating the revenue?—San
Joachin! draw for the gold and be
damned to you.”

“Mien zeer guter vriend, dou dinks der guilder last
vorever? ja!” rejoined the ferry master, retreating back
as the other advanced on him, and speaking with as gentle
and placable a manner as he was capable, “Ik has
baid de brize moneys dat sall be dien zo long as dat u
sall zee;” so saying he drew from his `broeks' a torn, dirtied
and well thumbed Low Dutch ballad, on the blank side of
which was scrawled some Hollandsche characters and
figures, to which having called attention by pointing with
his finger, he continued, “dere mien vriend is der reckening—dat
is der calculations op der zum dat is baid—
dere ish blain mit drute—dwendy guilder von der schepen—dirty
von der schout”—

“Thou miserly, lying, cheating picaron!” roared the
angered sailor, “you and those beggarly corrupt rascals
would swallow up an Indiaman:—But knave,” added he,
fiercely grasping the breech of his arquebuss in one
hand, while with the other he strongly seized the shrinking
Vanderspeigl, “an I thought thee worth an ounce of
lead and charge of powder, I'd tear your canvass rag
from rag, but I'd haul the right tale from thee; thof curse
me, thou smuggling porpoise, an you do not in the shifting
of a block sign for the broad pieces—traidor! I'll tar that
double jacket of thine till there is not a seam except of
running blood on its cowardly owner's carcass—perro!

I'll batter that hull of thine while there sticks a plank to
its rotten ribs to keep the stingy frame together.”

“Mien waarde vriend—mien zeer guter vriend,”
moaned the affrighted Dutchman, striving to mollify the
rage of the mariner, and sinking his short pursy form into
a heap beneath the powerful gripe with which it was assailed,
“op myn zeil! dou sall hab der beices. Goot
Got! dou is ash hot mit bassion, ash vire, ja!—zo ash der
blexemstaal dat is der lidt'ning dat vlashes—ik mill run
vor der baper—dou sall hab der bieces, myn guter vriend.”

“Not so hasty, lubber, I've brought all things, even to
the purser's quill,” said Eumet producing them, “here
clap your anchor—a hundred, a round hundred, rascal—
do you mark?

The Nederlander, while his determined tormentor
stood watching over him, with the muzzle of the piece
on a level with his head, though scarce alive with terror,
or conscious what he was about, complied quickly with
the marauder's demand, and signed the draft handed him;
which he had no sooner finished, than the other eagerly
snatched it from him; and having carefully folded it, he
placed it securely in his jerkin: while Vanderspeigl by this
motion being relieved from the present threatened and
imminent danger, turned his eyes towards his garment
where it had been held by Eumet—the place of whose
grasp was plainly visible, from sundry rents and lacerated
marks of violence.

“Mien got bresarve me,” he grumbled, unable to refrain
his anguish at the sight, “zee heir—got tam! u
dake a jonker mit his droat, as he was zo as a bear—op
myn zeil, u sall nien be willing to bay vone zingle stuyver
to mend dis jakje—ja—it mill gost more as vat dat
is.”—

“Avast, my bold hearted mosco, be of good cheer
about it”—returned the mariner, as with a loud laugh he
replaced his arquebuss in the support of the bandalier.
“Yo so agradacio![48] round bow—that's thanking you
like a true tar for the supply; and now, since I've mine

own freight aboard, I'll stow cargo for others; for I am
cursedly tired with looking at that ugly cats-head o' thine:
and if I anchor longer before your inhospitable harbour, I
shall hoist as many colours as a dying dolphin. Mass,
I am already an ice boat; therefore I must run up my
sail: nuestra senora, but first I've orders for thee; low
deck—the old man says you must heave anchor—for as
I tipped you a glass or so since, the little gentleman
who's rigged in black velvet[49] hath shipped the province
a new ruler—but the dog is wind bound at Catsdown,
and be damned to him: thof diabolo, his convoy parting
company, hath brought to in the very jaw of the sound;
we slipt her in the fog, and were it not for policy, in spite
of her iron teeth, we'd muzzle her—but d'ye see, they
might send the despatch in a leaden cannister to the sea's
bottom; so mark me, Dutchman, without spinning a long
yarn, we must have her papers or our jig's up; for thof
we have friends in Old England, as Kid says, who will
bring us off, it is hard to treat with the conqueror after
the flag's down: now ere I steered here, a canoe rowed
for the creek in which was the king's messenger; the
galliot herself, I take it, is fearful of venturing without a
pilot down the river; so hark ye, rogue, the captain leaves
much to thy ingenuity; they will perforce seek your
guidance,—and then,” whispered the desperado, “you
must run the old tack—and there'll not be a great difficulty
to give them short shrift, a burial ground, or a
winding sheet.”

“Ik dravel ad dis uur,” replied the phlegmatic Hollander,
every bit of resolution within him aroused at the
idea, “dou sall nien dink zo—got tam! 'tis one zo storm—
ja—zo cold nagt as dat u zee in der louwmand—dat is der
dime von midden winter—op myn zeil,” continued he
determinately, “ik will niet sdirs vrom mien huis vor all
dat Von Trump was—sapperment!

“Santa terra, buey! but thou shalt obey,” said the
buccaneer, turning suddenly round from the horse which
he was preparing to remount, and interrupting the Dutch

man, “diabolo! refuse, and in the flash of my petronel,
your blood shall die the snow,”—he shouted in a voice
that made his hearer shake at its sound—“picaron, the
red flames of your hovel shall be a beacon on the coast;
your glutted lockers shall not have one real to keep them
from emptiness; not a hound that you cherish shall live:
damn you, hedgehog—your hide shall be stript in thongs,
and tanned from the yard.”

“Bresarve me,” faintly ejaculated the cowering Vanderspeigl,
his courage momently escaping him as he expostulated
with, and strived to calm the marauder—
“mien guter vriend, your blood is zo warms as in vone
long day that is in Shune—op myn drute! do blease,
mien friend, ik mill dravel to der Guilderland—ja, ik did
dry u mit mien jockkernie—mien vun.”

“Avast! you need not take that latitude,” answered the
rover—“but time wears; an thou dost mutiny, beware!
ho, my caballo!” pursued he, smoothing the broad flowing
mane of his restless steed—who during the action
that had passed, had impatiently, with fretful pawings,
dashed up the drift and sand that encircled his hoofs;
“are you 'most ready for a cruize?—and you, messmate,
look ahead how you trim your ship,” continued he,
turning a deriding glance on the crest fallen Nederlander
as he sprang into his seat; “thof blow what breeze
may, I shall bless your hundred pieces, lo agradacio infinito
mi amigo[50] as the Spaniards say. Mass! you may
see a second draft when this runs low; but for now, buen
noches—veti en paz,[51] senor Close-chest.”

And striking his heels sturdily in the flanks of the
horse, the gallant animal sprung like an arrow through
the night—and darting down the long track by which
he had advanced, in a few minutes both steed and rider
were lost to the view.

“Der tam birate—der tieving hond,” growled out the
ferry-master—the long pent up flood of gall bursting forth
with all the virulence of an angry stream breaking its

dam; “ja, hesh sdole dat bay paard, mit de vite sbot all over
mit him: blesh mien hertz, tis grying Benson's hosh, dat
livsh at der kommons. Ja—der zeerover—got tam! hesh
dakenmien brincibal—vone hundred—mien got, Ik sall
loseder belaang—dats de inderish—vyf ber cend—goot
Got! Ik sall be ruin—ja! got tam, Ik sall be ruin.”

The Dutchman having thus sorrowfully expressed himself,
paused and listened a short period, with an elongated
and melancholious visage, to the hollow, sullen and
retiring echoes of the horse's tread, muttering indistinct
curses between his teeth, and giving over the buccaneer,
without remorse or reservation, to the devil. Being
somewhat satisfied with this severe revenge—and all the
oaths applicable, furnished by his fertile imagination being
exhausted, he surlily shrugged his shoulders and
turned to retire, when right in his path he perceived an
abused companion;—the fragments of his pipe were scattered
before him; it had dropt unfortunately, during
one of his partial stresses from the embracing lips of its
owner, and had met a destructive reception from the
frozen earth whereon it had fallen.

“Got tam! myn byp is broke,” he lugubriously groaned—“dirty
dousand bieces—myn byp—Got tam.”

As he grumbled these expressive words in woeful
spirit, he seized with a hand at each corner, the colopeye
of his huge `broeks'—which either from the agitation,
or the uncommon exertions he had been forced to
undergo, were fast escaping by gentle slips from the
situation they were used and intended to occupy: (for in
those times, the waistband was the only supporter;) and
giving them a fretful hitch, that brought all back to its
duty—he, (the puissant Mienheer Sporus Vanderspeigl,
slow and thoughtful, bearing a countenance whose
expression was that of vinegar itself, while wending
dolorous and malcontent unto that retirement and solacing
shelter, of which, had it not been for the goed
Vrouw's usurpation, he was lord and master)—strode
into his domicile,—the ferry-house of Harlæm.

And so worthy and patient reader, he having thus

taken it in mind to depart, I shall with his disappearance,
make an end of this first book; not however, without
inviting you, if your stomach holds good, and your appetite
be as yet unsated—to turn your eyes to the
fresh food which is served up in that which cometh
next.