Keen eyes were not long in discerning, as they scanned it, two masts and a hull, heeled over. The schooner was ashore—inside the Beach at the Point of Woods.
Scudding west the afternoon before, and now ashore at the Point of Woods and heeled over! What was the inference from the two things? Plainly to every inhabitant, that the outlaws had run the schooner into Fire Island for a harbor, and when the wind made that sudden shift, the vessel had fouled anchor or parted chain and had gone ashore.
That afternoon there was brisk riding to summon the squads of men.
“Now’s our chance, if ever. They’ll hang on there till high tide ’bout midnight, an’ try to get ’er off. But they won’t find as much water piled up there agin at high tide as they went ashore in. An’ to-morrow, after workin’ an’ tuggin’ half the night to no purpose, they’ll conclude to abandon her,” were the rousing words of a man who gathered a small squad at Islip within half an hour after the word of summons came.
By understanding, the place of rendezvous was the old tavern still standing at Blue Point, where the road running south makes a sharp angle and bends to the west.
Two squads came from the west—twelve men. They halted at Widow Molly’s, and rested a short time in that front room. They talked of the ransacking and robbery of the house, and nothing else; boasted of the vengeance they would take out of those “hell-birds;” drank two or three times around, and then set out for Blue Point, assuring the hostess that they would recover her gold.
Widow Molly made no reply to this, but to Captain Ben of the [Penataquit] squad, with whom she walked to the door, she said quietly, “Bring back, if nothing else, a gun with brass mountings, which they took the last thing without my knowing it. It must be on board somewhere.”
A squad came up from Patchogue, and when those from the west arrived at the tavern, there were twenty-six men ready for the enterprise.
Three hours passed in discussing plans and selecting a leader. It could not have been done in less time. Every man had his ideas, and every man had to be heard. And so the company gradually broke up into groups. One knot of men stood outside the tavern door, a group of five or six were out by the barn, a number walked towards the shore to see just the position the schooner lay in, thinking that a sight of her from Blue Point would suggest the best move to make. When those who walked towards the shore came back, they suggested that all go into the tavern and either all agree upon some plan or give the affair up and go home. In all the discussion two or three self-contained men had kept quiet, knowing evidently that there must be just so much futile talk, and that when this had become tiresome, the company would adopt any good plan.
Among those who had said very little was Captain Ben of Penataquit. A little vexed, he suddenly stepped into a chair and spoke: “This talk can go on till Doomsday, but it won’t accomplish anything. Now, I know, there has been three or four plans stated; but I propose this as the surest one, though it’ll take longer an’ be harder on us. After dark, muffle our oars, an’ row across the Bay to [Long Cove]. Land there, draw our boats up an’ cover ’em with sea-weed. At midnight start west along the surf-shore, an’ when we get opposite to where the schooner is ashore, cross the Beach, an’ surprise the crew at daybreak. That’s the main plan. All the rest’ll have to be decided accordin’ to what turns up.”