When the landing was made the ship stood out to sea and made long tacks off and on, gradually working westward along the coast.
The sailor set ashore was a man of tall and powerful frame. He brought apparently nothing ashore with him, and no sooner had he gained the dry strand than he set out at a brisk pace, making his way westward over the narrow and rocky peninsula. When half the distance to Napeague Beach, he stopped near a large rock and made certain observations. This done, he signalled to the ship, and was answered by the clewing up of the foresail. Then he recommenced his walk towards the village of Amagansette. It was dusk when he reached that village, and his first move was to find where he could spend the night. His applications for lodgings were repeatedly refused by the inhabitants, and that evening and for a week thereafter, the most prominent topic of village talk and conjecture was the stranger who had sought lodgings at so many doors.
Where he passed the night is not known. But the next day, at East Hampton and at South Hampton, the question was frequently asked, “Did you see the stranger that went through the village this morning?”
Perhaps no ordinary event in those days would have attracted more attention at these villages than the appearance and disappearance of an unknown man. Who he was, what his errand might be, where he came from, and whither he went, were matters of speculation for days; and in this instance there was an additional incentive to curiosity, for the stranger’s dress showed him to be a sailor, his manner was rough, his face was cruel in expression, and he held no further word of conversation than was barely necessary to supply his wants.
It is said that after leaving these villages the stranger was seen making observations on the coast somewhere below Ketchabonack. Of his journey westward, nothing more is known, until he was passing over that long, sandy, and solitary tract of road which lies between Forge River and [The Mills]. Here he stopped, and made some inquiry of Mr. Payne, an old soldier of the Revolution.
When the stranger departed, the family at once asked, “Who was he?”
The reply made by old Mr. Payne was significant. “That I can’t tell; but one thing I can—whoever he is, he has been in human slaughter.”
At one of those villages where the Great South Bay broadens to a width of four or five miles, this man was set across to the Beach. To some of the residents thereabout he was known, and so, moreover, was the fact that, for a long period, he had been away from home—piloting, it was reported. His wife and also his daughter, a young woman of defiant mien, saucy speech, and, it is said, of unwholesome reputation, dwelt alone upon the Beach, at what from early colonial days had been called the Old House, but which, since the tragedy of that awful night, has more frequently borne the name of the iniquitous family.
For two days the ship had been sailing east and west, standing off and on shore, awaiting intelligence from him. He saw her the morning he landed on the Beach, but could not signal, as the man who set him across did not return at once. Then, too, after he had gone, two vessels loaded for New York passed within an hour and a half of each other, on their way to Fire Island. Late in the afternoon—the earliest moment he deemed safe—he signalled to the ship that he had reached the spot where all had agreed to land, that circumstances and surroundings were opportune for their purpose, and to hold in position as best possible till darkness settled.
All, however, was not favorable. There were indications of an approaching storm—indications that portended its sudden approach. The swell on shore, too, was rising and rolling in with stronger volume. They were in a bad position, and well they knew it. There was not sea-room enough, with a south-easterly storm, in that angle of the coast. But what cared that reckless crew now about their ship, other than she must not go ashore within sight or reach of where they proposed to land.