OONDER-HOOFDEN, OR THE UNDERCLIFF.
A TALE OF THE VOYAGE OF HENDRICK HUDSON.
1. CHAPTER I.
“It is but an arm of the sea, as I told thee, skipper,”
said John Fleming, the mate of the “Halve-Mane,”
standing ready to jam down the tiller and bring-to,
if his master should agree with him in opinion.
Hudson stood by his steersman, with folded arms,
now looking at the high-water mark on the rocks,
which betrayed a falling tide, now turning his ear
slightly forward to catch the cry of the man who stood
heaving the lead from the larboard bow. The wind
drew lightly across the starboard quarter, and, with a
counter-tide, the little vessel stole on scarce perceptibly,
though her mainsail was kept full — the slowly
passing forest trees on the shore giving the lie to the
merry and gurgling ripple at the prow.
The noble river, or creek, which they had followed
in admiring astonishment for fifty miles, had hitherto
opened fairly and broadly before them, though, once
or twice, its widening and mountain-girt bosom had
deceived the bold navigator into the belief, that he
was entering upon some inland lake. The wind still
blew kindly and steadily from the southeast, and the
sunset of the second day — a spectacle of tumultuous
and gorgeous glory which Hudson attributed justly
to the more violet atmospheric laws of an unsettled
continent — had found them apparently closed in by
impenetrable mountains, and running immediately on
the head shore of an extended arm of the sea.
“She'll strike before she can follow her helm,”
cried the young sailor in an impatient tone, yet still
with habitual obedience keeping her duly on her
course.
“Port a little!” answered the skipper, a moment
after, as if he had not heard the querulous comment
of his mate.
Fleming's attention was withdrawn an instant by
a low gutural sound of satisfaction, which reached
his ear as the head of the vessel went round, and,
casting his eye amidships, he observed the three
Indians who had come off to the Half-Moon in a
canoe, and had been received on board by the master,
standing together in the chains, and looking forward
to the rocks they were approaching with countenances
of the most eager interest.
“Master Hendrick!” he vociferated in the tone of
a man who can contain his anger no longer, “will you
look at these grinning red-devils, who are rejoicing to
see you run so blindly ashore?”
The adventurous little bark was by this time within
a biscuit toss of a rocky point that jutted forth into
the river with the grace of a lady's foot dallying with
the water in her bath; and, beyond the sedgy bank
disappeared in an apparent inlet, barely deep enough,
it seemed to the irritated steersman, to shelter a
canoe.
As the Half-Moon obeyed her last order, and headed
a point more to the west, Hudson strode forward to
the bow, and sprang upon the windlass, stretching his
gaze eagerly into the bosom of the hills that were now
darkening with the heavy shadows of twilight, though
the sky was still gorgeously purple overhead.
The crew had by this time gathered with unconscious
apprehension at the halyards, ready to let go
at the slightest gesture of the master, but, in the slow
progress of the little bark, the minute or two which
she took to advance beyond the point on which his
eye was fixed, seemed an age of suspense.
The Half-Moon seemed now almost immoveable,
for the current, which convinced Hudson there was
a passage beyond, set her back from the point with
increasing force, and the wind lulled a little with the
sunset. Inch by inch, however, she crept on, till at
last the silent skipper sprang from the windlass upon
the bowsprit, and running out with the agility of a
boy, gave a single glance ahead, and the next moment
had the tiller in his hand, and cried out with a
voice of thunder, “Stand by the halyards! helm'sa-lee!”
In a moment, as if his words had been lightning,
the blocks rattled, the heavy boom swung round like
a willow spray, and the white canvass, after fluttering
an instant in the wind, filled and drew steadily on the
other tack.
Looks of satisfaction were exchanged between the
crew, who expected the next instant an order to take
in the sail and drop anchor; but the master was at the
helm, and to their utter consternation, he kept her
steadily to the wind, and drove straight on, while a
gorge, that, in the increasing darkness, seemed the
entrance to a cavern, opened its rocky sides as they
advanced.
The apprehensions of the crew were half lost in
their astonishment at the grandeur of the scene. The
cliffs seemed to close up behind them; a mountain,
that reached apparently to the now colorless clouds,
rose up gigantic, in the increasing twilight, over the
prow; on the right, where the water seemed to bend,
a craggy precipice extended its threatening wall; and
in the midst of this round bay, which seemed to them
to be an enclosed lake in the bottom of an abyss, the
wind suddenly took them aback, the Halve-Mane lost
her headway, and threatened to go on the rocks with
the current, and audible curses at his folly reached
the ears of the determined master.
More to divert their attention than with a prognostic
of the direction of the wind, Hudson gave the
order to tack, and, more slowly this time, but still
with sufficient expedition, the movement was executed,
and the flapping sails swung round. The halyards
were not belayed before the breeze, rushing
down a steep valley on the left, struck full on
the larboard quarter, and, running sharp past the face
of the precipice over the starboard bow, Hudson
pointed out, exultingly, to his astonished men, the
broad waters of the mighty river, extending far through
the gorge beyond — the dim purple of the lingering
day, which had been long lost to the cavernous and
overshadowed pass they had penetrated, tinting its far
bosom like the last faint hue of the expiring dolphin.
The exulting glow of triumph suffused the face
of the skipper, and relinquishing the tiller once more
to the mortified Fleming, he walked forward to look
out for an anchorage. The Indians, who still stood
in the chains together, and who had continued to
express their satisfaction as the vessel made her way
through the pass, now pointed eagerly to a little
bay on the left, across which a canoe was shooting
like the reflection of a lance in the air, and, the wind
dying momently away, Hudson gave the order to
round to, and dropped his anchor for the night.
In obedience to the politic orders of Hudson the
men were endeavoring, by presents and signs, to
induce the Indians to leave the vessel, and the master
himself stood on the poop with his mate, gazing
back on the wonderful scene they had passed through.
“This passage,” said Hudson, musingly, “has been
rent open by an earthquake, and the rocks look still as
if they felt the agony of the throe.”
“It is a pity the earthquake did its job so raggedly,
then!” answered his sulky companion, who had not
yet forgiven the mountains for the shame their zig-zag
precipices had put upon his sagacity.
At that instant a sound, like that of a heavy body
sliding into the water, struck the ear of Fleming,
and looking quickly over the stern, he saw one of
the Indians swimming from the vessel with a pillow
in his hand, which he had evidently stolen from the
cabin window. To seize a musket, which lay ready
for attack on the quarter-deck, and fire upon the poor
savage, was the sudden thought and action of a man on
the watch, for a vent to incensed feelings.
The Indian gave a yell which mingled wildly with
the echoes of the report from the reverberating hills,
and springing waist-high out of the water, the gurgling
eddy closed suddenly over his head.
The canoe in which the other savages were already
embarked shot away, like an arrow, to the shore, and
Hudson, grieved and alarmed inexpressibly at the fool-hardy
rashness of his mate, ordered all hands to arms,
and established a double watch for the night.
Hour after hour, the master and the non-repentant
Fleming paced fore and aft, each in his own
quarter of the vessel, watching the shore and the
dark face of the water with straining eyes: but no
sound came from the low cliff round which the flying
canoe had vanished, and the stars seemed to
wink almost audibly in the dread stillness of nature.
The men alarmed at the evident agitation of Hudson,
who, in these pent-up waters, anticipated a most effective
and speedy revenge from the surrounding
tribes, drowsed not upon their watch, and the gray
light of the morning began to show faintly over the
mountains before the anxious master withdrew his
aching eyes from the still and star waters.
2. CHAPTER II.
Like a web woven of gold by the lightning, the
sun's rays ran in swift threads from summit to summit
of the dark green mountains, and the soft mist
that slept on the breast of the river began to lift like
the slumberous lid from the eye of woman, when her
dream is broken at dawn. Not so poetically were
these daily glories regarded, however, by the morning
watch of the Half-Moon, who, between the desire to
drop asleep with their heads on the capstan, and the
necessity of keeping sharper watch lest the Indians
should come off through the rising mist, bore the
double pains of Tantalus and Sysiphus — ungratified
desire at their lips and threatening ruin over their heads.
After dividing the watch at the break of day, Hudson,
with the relieved part of his crew, had gone below,
and might have been asleep an hour, when Fleming
suddenly entered the cabin and laid his hand upon
his shoulder. The skipper sprang from his berth
with the habitual readiness of a seaman, and followed
his mate upon deck, where he found his men standing
to their arms, and watching an object that, to his first
glance, seemed like a canoe sailing down upon them
through the air. The rash homicide drew close to
Hendrick as he regarded it, and the chatter of his
teeth betrayed that, during the long and anxious
watches of the night, his conscience had not justified
him for the hasty death he had awarded to a fellow-creature.
“She but looms through the mist!” said the skipper,
after regarding the advancing object for a moment.
“It is a single canoe, and can scarce harm us. Let
her come alongside!”
The natural explanation of the phenomenon at once
satisfied the crew, who had taken their superstitious
fears rather from Fleming's evident alarm than from
their own want of reflection; but the guilty man himself
still gazed on the advancing phantom, and when
a slight stir of the breeze raised the mist like the corner
of a curtain, and dropped the canoe plain upon
the surface of the river, he turned gloomily on his
heel, and muttered in an undertone to Hudson, “It
brings no good, Skipper Hendrick!”
Meanwhile the canoe advanced slowly. The single
paddle which propelled her pasused before every turn,
and as the mist lifted quite up and showed a long
green line of shore between its shadowy fringe and
the water, an Indian, highly-painted, and more ornamented
than any they had hitherto seen, appeared
gazing earnestly at the vessel, and evidently approaching
with fear and caution.
The Half-Moon was heading up the river with
the rising tide, and Hudson walked forward to the
bows to look at the savage more closely. By the
eagle and bear, so richly embroidered in the gay-colored
quills of the porcupine on his belt of wampum,
he presumed him to be a chief; and glancing
his eye into the canoe, he saw the pillow which had
occasioned the death of the plunderer the night before,
and on it lay two ears of corn, and two broken arrows.
Pausing a moment as he drew near, the Indian pointed
to these signs of peace, and Hudson, in reply, spread
out his open hands and beckoned him to come on
board. In an instant the slight canoe shot under the
starboard bow, and with a noble confidence which the
skipper remarked upon with admiration, the tall savage
sprang upon the deck and laid the hand of the commander
to his breast.
The noon arrived, hot and sultry, and there was no
likelihood of a wind till sunset. The chief had been
feasted on board, and had shown, in his delight, the
most unequivocal evidence of good feeling; and even
Fleming, at last, who had drank more freely than usual
during the morning, abandoned his suspicion, and
joined in amusing the superb savage who was their
guest. In the course of the forenoon, another canoe
came off, paddled by a single young woman, whom
Fleming, recognised as having accompanied the plunderers
the night before, but in his half-intoxicated
state, it seemed to recall none of his previous bodings,
and to his own surprise, and that of the crew, she
evidently regarded him with particular favor, and by
pertinacious and ingenious signs, endeavored to induce
him to go ashore with her in the canoe. The
particular character of her face and form would have
given the mate a clue to her probable motives, had he
been less reckless from his excitement. She was
taller than is common for females of the savage tribes,
and her polished limbs, as gracefully moulded in their
dark hues as those of the mercury of the fountain,
combined, with their slightness, a nerve and steadiness
of action which betrayed strength and resolution
of heart and frame. Her face was highly beautiful,
but the voluptuous fulness of the lips was contradicted
by a fierce fire in her night-dark eyes, and a quickness
of the brow to descend, which told of angry passions
habitually on the alert. It was remarked by Hans
Christaern, one of the crew, that when Fleming left
her for an instant, she abstracted herself from the
other joyous groups, and, with folded arms and looks
of brooding thoughtfulness, stood looking over the
stern; but immediately on his reappearance, her
snowy teeth became visible between her relaxing lips,
and she resumed her patient gaze upon his countenance,
and her occasional efforts to draw him into the
canoe.
Quite regardless of the presence of the woman, the
chief sat apart with Hudson, communicating his ideas
by intelligent signs, and after a while, the skipper
called his mate, and informed him that, as far as he
could understand, the chief wished to give them a
feast on shore. “Arm yourselves well,” said he,
“though I look for no treachery from this noble pagan;
and if chance should put us in danger, we shall be
more than a match for the whole tribe. Come with
me, Fleming,” he continued, after a pause, “you are
too rash with your firearms to be left in command.
Man the watch, four of you, and the rest get into the
long-boat. We'll while away these sluggish hours,
though danger is in it”
The men sprang gayly below for their arms, and
were soon equipped and ready, and the chief, with an
expression of delight, put off in his canoe, followed
more slowly by the heavy long-boat, into which Hudson,
having given particular orders to the watch to let
no savages on board during his absence, was the last
to embark. The woman, whom the chief had called
to him before his departure by the name of Kihyalee,
sped off before in her swift canoe to another point of
the shore, and when Fleming cried out from the bow
of the boat, impatiently motioning her to follow, she
smiled in a manner that sent a momentary shudder
through the veins of the skipper who chanced to observe
the action, and by a circular movement of her
arm conveyed to him that she should meet him from
the other side of the hill. As they followed the chief,
they discovered the wigwams of an Indian village behind
the rocky point for which she was making, and
understood that the chief had sent her thither on some
errand connected with his proposed hospitality.
A large square rock, which had the look of having
been hurled with some avalanche from the mountain,
lay in the curve of a small beach of sand, surrounded
by the shallow water, and, on the left of this, the chief
pointed out to the skipper a deeper channel, hollowed
by the entrance of a mountain-torrent into the river,
through which he might bring his boat to land. At
the edge of this torrent's bed, the scene of the first act
of hospitality to our race upon the Hudson, stands at
this day the gate to the most hospitable mansion on
the river, as if the spirit of the spot had consecrated it
to its first association with the white man.
The chief led the way when the crew had disembarked,
by a path skirting the deep-worn bed of the
torrent, and after an ascent of a few minutes, through
a grove of tall firs, a short turn to the left brought
them upon an open table of land, a hundred and fifty
feet above the river shut in by a circle of forest-trees,
and frowned over on the east by a tall and bald cliff,
which shot up in a perpendicular line to the height
of three hundred feet. From a cleft in the face of
this precipice a natural spring oozed forth, drawing
a darker line down the sun-parched rock, and feeding
a small stream that found its way to the river on the
northern side of the platform just mentioned, creating
between itself and the deeper torrent to the south, a
sort of highland peninsula, now constituting the estate
of the hospitable gentleman above alluded to.
Hudson looked around him with delight and surprise
when he stood on the highest part of the broad
natural table selected by the chief for his entertainment.
The view north showed a cleft through the
hills, with the river coiled like a lake in its widening
bed, while a blue and wavy line of mountains formed
the far horizon at its back; south, the bold eminences,
between which he had found his adventurous
way, closed in like the hollowed sides of a bright-green
vase, with glimpses of the river lying in its
bottom like crystal; below him descended a sharp
and wooded bank, with the river at its foot, and
directly opposite rose a hill in a magnificent cone to
the very sky, sending its shadow down through the
mirrored water, as if it entered to some inner world.
The excessive lavishness of the foliage clothed these
bold natural features with a grace and richness altogether
captivating to the senses, and Hudson long
stood, gazing around him, believing that the tales of
brighter and happier lands were truer than he had
deemed, and that it was his lucky destiny to have been
the discoverer of a future Utopia.
A little later, several groups of Indians were seen
advancing from the village, bearing the materials for
a feast, which they deposited under a large tree, indicated
by the chief. It was soon arranged, and Hudson
with his men surrounded the dishes of shell and
wood, one of which, placed in the centre, contained a
roasted dog, half buried in Indian-corn. While the
chief and several of his warriors sat down in company
with the whites, the young men danced the calumetdance
to the sound of a rude drum, formed by drawing
a skin tightly over a wooden bowl, and near them, in
groups, stood the women and children of the village,
glancing with looks of curiosity from the feats of the
young men to the unaccustomed faces of the strangers.
Among the women stood Kihyalee, who kept her
large bright eyes fixed almost fiercely upon Fleming,
yet when he looked toward her, she smiled and turned
as if she would beckon him away — a bidding which he
tried in vain to obey, under the vigilant watch of his
master.
The feast went on, and the Indians having produced
gourds, filled with a slight intoxicating liquor made
from the corn, Hudson offered to the chief, some
spirits from a bottle which he had intrusted to one
of the men to wash down the expected roughness of
the savage viands. The bottle passed in turn to the
mate, who was observed to drink freely, and, a few
minutes after, Hudson rising to see more nearly a trial
of skill with the bow and arrow, Fleming found the
desired opportunity, and followed the tempting Kihyalee
into the forest.
The sun began to throw the shadows of the tall
pines in gigantic pinnacles along the ground, and the
youths of the friendly tribe, who had entertained the
great navigator, ceased from their dances and feats
of skill, and clustered around the feast-tree. Intending
to get under weigh with the evening breeze and
proceed still farther up the river, Hudson rose to collect
his men, and bid the chief farewell. Taking the
hand of the majestic savage and putting it to his
breast, to express in his own manner the kind feelings
he entertained for him, he turned toward the path
by which he came, and was glancing round at his men,
when Hans Christaern inquired if he had sent the
mate back to the vessel.
“Der teufel, no!” answered the skipper, missing
him for the first time; “has he been long gone?”
“A full hour!” said one of the men.
Hudson put his hand to his head, and remembered
the deep wrong Fleming had done to the tribe. Retribution,
he feared, had over-taken him — but how was
it done so silently? How had the guilty man been
induced to leave his comrades, and accelerate his
doom by his own voluntary act?
The next instant resolved the question. A distant
and prolonged scream, as of a man in mortal agony,
drew all eyes to the summit of the beetling cliff, which
overhung them. On its extremest verge, outlined
distinctly against the sky, stood the tall figure of Kihyalee,
holding from her, yet poised over the precipice,
the writhing form of her victim, while in the other
hand, flashing in the rays of the sun, glittered the
bright hatchet she had plucked from his girdle. Infuriated
at the sight, and suspecting collision on the
part of the chief, Hudson drew his cutlass and gave
the order to stand to arms, but as he turned, the gigantic
savage had drawn an arrow to its head with incredible
force, and though it fell far short of its mark, there
was that in the action and in his look which, in the
passing of a thought, changed the mind of the skipper.
In another instant, the hesitating arm of the widowed
Kihyalee descended, and loosening her hold upon the
relaxed body of her victim, the doomed mate fell
heavily down the face of the precipice.
The chief turned to Hudson, who stood trembling
and aghast at the awful scene, and plucked the remaining
arrows from his quiver, he broke them and
threw himself on the ground. The tribe gathered
around their chief, Hudson moved his hand to them
in token of forgiveness, and in a melancholy silence
the crew took their way after him to the shore.
