"On hearing this, Kidd and his boat's crew laughed, and gnashed their teeth; but a few there were who wept and wailed heavily, and the sound of their lamentation was fearful as it mingled with the chafing of the surge.
"'I have some fine things stowed away here in Baccalao,' said Kidd; 'but I have some that are better still in the haunted Kaatskill Mountain, and at Tapaan Zee, up the Hudson.'
"The spirit-watcher groaned.
"'Since I saw you last, brother, I have been twice hanged and strung in chains on the banks of the Thames—ha! ha! at Gravesend Reach.'
"'Hanged!'
"'Yes, by all the devils in New Amsterdam!—HANGED! Hanged by order of him of pious, glorious, and immortal memory—by Orange Billy, who assassinated the De Witts in Holland, who murdered eighty men, women, and children in cold blood in Scotland; who abandoned his soldiers at Steinkirk; who boiled and burned women alive in London for coining a few brass halfpence; and who departed this life amid the prayers of canting hypocrites and lawn-sleeved parasites, on the 8th day of March, 1701! He roasts now, for some of his pranks, I can tell you! But heave a-head, brother! we must ship our cargo, and be off to-night for Cape Cod at New Amsterdam (or New York, as the folks call it now-a-days), ere the moon wanes or the tide falls. Where is the plunder?'
"The sad spirit-watcher pointed to a place which seemed to have opened in the rocky cavern; and there Tom Spiller could see, by the beams of the moon, heaps of gold and silver vessels, sparkling jewels and trinkets, with veritable pyramids of gold and silver coins of every nation and of every size, piled up in confusion.
"Bewildered by this sight, he permitted rather too much of his figure to be seen; for suddenly a yell of rage came from the spectre boat's crew; and Kidd, drawing one of the long brass pistols from his broad buff girdle, uttered a dreadful oath—
"'A spy!' he exclaimed; 'take that and perish!'
"He fired full at the head of Tom, who felt the ball pass through his brain like a red-hot arrow, and he sank upon the rocks—where he found himself lying stiff enough when he awoke next morning, and saw the Baccalao birds wheeling about in the sunshine."