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Page 50
The next morning, some of the bolder and more curious undertook to
reconnoitre. All was quiet and lifeless at the Wild Goose. The door
yawned wide open, and had evidently been open all night, for the storm
had beaten into the house. Gathering more courage from the silence and
apparent desertion, they gradually ventured over the threshold. The
house had indeed the air of having been possessed by devils. Every thing
was topsy-turvy; trunks had been broken open, and chests of drawers and
corner cupboards turned inside out, as in a time of general sack and
pillage; but the most woful sight was the widow of Yan Yost Vanderscamp,
extended a corpse on the floor of the blue-chamber, with the marks of a
deadly gripe on the wind-pipe.
All now was conjecture and dismay at Communipaw; and the disappearance
of old Pluto, who was no where to be found, gave rise to all kinds of
wild surmises. Some suggested that the negro had betrayed the house to
some of Vanderscamp's bucaniering associates, and that they had decamped
together with the booty; others surmised that the negro was nothing more
nor less than a devil incarnate, who had now accomplished his ends, and
made off with his dues. Events, however, vindicated the negro from this
last imputation. His skiff was picked up, drifting about the bay, bottom
upward, as if wrecked in a tempest; and his body was found, shortly
afterward, by some Communipaw fishermen, stranded among the rocks of
Gibbet-Island, near the foot of the pirates' gallows. The fishermen
shook their heads, and observed that old Pluto had ventured once too
often to invite Guests from Gibbet-Island.
* * * * *
THE BERMUDAS.
A SHAKSPERIAN RESEARCH: BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCHBOOK.
"Who did not think, till within these foure yeares, but that these
islands had been rather a habitation for Divells, than fit for men to
dwell in? Who did not hate the name, when hee was on land, and shun the
place when he was on the seas? But behold the misprision and conceits of
the world! For true and large experience hath now told us, it is one of
the sweetest paradises that be upon earth."--"A PLAINE DESCRIPT. OF THE
BARMUDAS:" 1613.
In the course of a voyage home from England, our ship had been
struggling, for two or three weeks, with perverse headwinds, and a
stormy sea. It was in the month of May, yet the weather had at times
a wintry sharpness, and it was apprehended that we were in the
neighborhood of floating islands of ice, which at that season of the
year drift out of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and sometimes occasion the
wreck of noble ships.
Wearied out by the continued opposition of the elements, our captain at
length bore away to the south, in hopes of catching the expiring breath
of the trade-winds, and making what is called the southern passage. A
few days wrought, as it were, a magical "sea change" in every thing
around us. We seemed to emerge into a different world. The late dark and
angry sea, lashed up into roaring and swashing surges, became calm and
sunny; the rude winds died away; and gradually a light breeze sprang up
directly aft, filling out every sail, and wafting us smoothly along on
an even keel. The air softened into a bland and delightful temperature.
Dolphins began to play about us; the nautilus came floating by, like a
fairy ship, with its mimic sail and rainbow tints; and flying-fish, from
time to time, made their short excursive flights, and occasionally fell
upon the deck. The cloaks and overcoats in which we had hitherto wrapped
ourselves, and moped about the vessel, were thrown aside; for a summer
warmth had succeeded to the late wintry chills. Sails were stretched as
awnings over the quarter-deck, to protect us from the mid-day sun. Under
these we lounged away the day, in luxurious indolence, musing, with
half-shut eyes, upon the quiet ocean. The night was scarcely less
beautiful than the day. The rising moon sent a quivering column of
silver along the undulating surface of the deep, and, gradually climbing
the heaven, lit up our towering top-sails and swelling main-sails, and
spread a pale, mysterious light around. As our ship made her whispering
way through this dreamy world of waters, every boisterous sound on board
was charmed to silence; and the low whistle, or drowsy song of a sailor
from the forecastle, or the tinkling of a guitar, and the soft warbling
of a female voice from the quarter-deck, seemed to derive a witching
melody from the scene and hour. I was reminded of Oberon's exquisite
description of music and moonlight on the ocean:
--"Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song?
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music."
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