“Well,” he replied, “before we get underway for home this afternoon, I’ll go with you and see what it was. Let me think. This is near the Old House. It’s easy enough to account for the bones over there; but the skull’s rocking—I guess you imagined that.”
“No, sir, father, I saw it go just like this—first one side and then the other,” replied the elder son, as he suggested the rocking by the motion of his hands.
“The skull don’t rock now,” said the father, when they reached the spot in the afternoon. He picked up the skull, and looking in, saw that a meadow mouse had built its nest there.
“Yes, boys, I guess you were right. I’ve no doubt now it did rock.”
And looking again at the skull, he saw that there were double teeth all around on each jaw. A horror ran through him at the thought. He cast the skull away, and turned to leave the spot, taking his boys by the hand. Half-way to the boat he spoke, saying: “That was a pirate’s skull and them was pirates’ bones. I heard when we first moved up to this part of the Island something about pirates being buried over on the Beach. This must be the place. I never inquired into the partic’lars. I don’t like such things, and don’t want to know ’bout ’em. If you do, wait till you get older, and then inquire into it. It’s bad for you to know such things now.”
The incident of coming upon the moving skull made so profound an impression upon the elder lad that his curiosity got the better of him, and in less than two days after reaching home, he had found someone who knew about what actually had taken place where the scattered bones lay, and who, moreover, directed him for fuller information to old Captain Terry. It was several years, though, before the lad really set about further inquiry, there being circumstances which wrought seriously against it. In the first place, Captain Terry lived several miles distant, and had the lad walked up to see him, there was the possibility of his being away from home, or if at home, too busy to answer the questions of an inquisitive boy. A walk of ten miles to Captain Terry’s and back would deter most boys of their curiosity. Then, too, the walk demanded no little courage of a boy who must go alone, or at best, with some companion of his own age; and should they be detained, causing a return after dark, there were to be passed one or two places along the road of such repute that a boy underwent an ordeal in his own mind in passing them, even in broad daylight.
[Clam-Hollow], deep, damp, and dismal, the narrow, crooked road, wooded closely by tall and sombre pines, all interwoven with their thick underbrush, was the scene of many a marvelous happening, which neighborhood talk attributed to that locality; while Brewster’s brook, near which the slave murdered his oppressive master, exercised a still stronger influence of fear and horror over the mind of every boy who had ever been past it.
But when the youth had grown towards manhood, and had forgotten the foolish fears and apprehensions of boyhood, when he was doing what he could to make his way in life—sometimes a laborer on farms, sometimes a boatman on the Bay—he heard, at casual times and places, so many allusions and fragmentary accounts of the buccaneers whose bodies lay buried westward of the Old House, that he was led to make full inquiry, and to get at the truth as near as might be. Not only was old Captain Terry’s recital heard, but all information that threw any light upon the tragedy was gleaned and treasured, and when an old man he related the following:
Very early in the present century, a ship hove to off Montauk, and set ashore a man.
She had, doubtless, made her landfall near the Inlet, had skirted the coast eastward, attracting no attention whatever—unlike in this respect the ship that the two brothers who went on the Beach “horse-footing” that June Sunday saw anchor close in, send her yawl ashore, and bury treasure, spilling human blood upon it in the act.