It is said that not long ago a company was organized in Nova Scotia for the purpose of seeking for Captain Kidd's treasures in a place which it is highly probable Captain Kidd never saw. A great excavation having been made, the water from the sea came in and filled it up, but the work was stopped only long enough to procure steam pumps with which the big hole could be drained. At last accounts the treasures had not been reached, and this incident is mentioned only to show how this belief in buried treasures continues even to the present day.
There is a legend which differs somewhat from the ordinary run of these stories, and it is told about a little island on the coast of Cape Cod, which is called Hannah Screecher's Island, and this is the way its name came to it.
Captain Kidd while sailing along the coast, looking for a suitable place to bury some treasure, found this island adapted to his purpose, and landed there with his savage crew, and his bags and boxes, and his gold and precious stones. It was said to be the habit of these pirates, whenever they made a deposit on the coast, to make the hole big enough not only to hold the treasure they wished to deposit there, but the body of one of the crew,—who was buried with the valuables in order that his spirit might act as a day and night watchman to frighten away people who might happen to be digging in that particular spot.
The story relates that somewhere on the coast Captain Kidd had captured a young lady named Hannah, and not knowing what to do with her, and desiring not to commit an unnecessary extravagance by disposing of a useful sailor, he determined to kill Hannah, and bury her with the treasure, in order that she might keep away intruders until he came for it.
It was very natural that when Hannah was brought on shore and found out what was going to be done with her, she should screech in a most dreadful manner, and although the pirates soon silenced her and covered her up, they did not succeed in silencing her spirit, and ever since that time,—according to the stories told by some of the older inhabitants of Cape Cod,—there may be heard in the early dusk of the evening the screeches of Hannah coming across the water from her little island to the mainland.
Mr. James Herbert Morse has written a ballad founded upon this peculiar incident, and with the permission of the author we give it here:—
The Lady Hannah.
"Now take my hand," quoth Captain Kidd,
"The air is blithe, I scent the meads."
He led her up the starlit sands,
Out of the rustling reeds.