"Well," resumed the negro, "Louis soon hear a domine say, 'This our bargain, then,—I take your place to watch a pirates' treasure,—I guess I soon fix him, and get him all slick away. But afore you and I deal, p'raps you show where a money is buried.' A stranger then point between a rocks beside him, and say in he's deep voice, 'Dere!' And then down by a colour man, Louis he see into a ground, what seems all full of treasure shining in a moonlight; here awful much gold and dollars, and dere a gold and silver plate, and a t'other place full of di'monds and jewels, bright as stars in a night sky. Grach! I tink he won'er, and b'lieve he rile a little that a almanack-maker so easy get a five hundred dollars for Dortje Deypester. A domine stare into a cave as if he's eyes eat up all he look at; but at last he get up and say, 'I gree, and dere my hand on a bargain; I take care all instead of you, and much more as you can show me.' So he fill he's pouches, and then go away to ole Deypester for a horses and bags to bring away a rest, dough he often turn a head to look back at a treasure. He hardly gone when a strange colour man call out to Louis in he's deep voice, 'This a dark night for a sad heart to journey in.' Louis turn he round directly, and see him close beside, berry tall and genteel, such a bootiful gentleum! dough he no make out he's face for a clouds over a moon. He little feared and won'ered at first, but soon he got up he's pluck and say, 'I guess it dark enough, but how you know my heart sad?' T' other answer him smart, 'That want no wizard, when he hear a sighs like yours. But he know little more yet: he reckon you want a five hundred dollars afore to-morrow, or lose your sweetheart, which a true shame for active springy lad like you: a pirates' treasure dere, hab a ten thousand times as much, as he know by a watching it these twenty years.'—'In a God's name!' say Louis then, 'who are you,—and who set you there?'—'One of a last of a Spanish buccaneers' say the other; 'that berry Captain Hornigold, what make love to Dortje Deypester. He take a ship, and kill all on board but me and young child, that I slave to; then he bring us bote to a shore, where he hide all his plunder, and stab us, and tell a ghosts to watch it. A young child he live, and found on a river bank, and so called by it name—Louis Hudson, it yourself!—but I die, and wan'er about a treasure-grave till a captain come back, or another take my place, or a right owner come for his own. All that happen to-night, and I soon at liberty for ever!—You hear a money-digger say he look to a pirates' spoil hereafter, and be sure he never quit a creek again, dough he never find a gold any more. This treasure here, belong to a father, who killed in ship; it now all your own; take him, but take a nothing more;—use him well, and you be fifty times so rich as Deypester, and hab a blessing beside.—Hark! a bell strike twelve!—my time most up now, and dere come a captain!"
"Ivory, you 'tarnal tonguey imp!" again interrupted the American, "doos you mean to keep on all night about that precious wordy black preaching in the creek? Now I'll show you how to finish it all right slick away at once, I will.—You see, then, the captain comes trampoosing up from the river with a spade and a lanthorn, to dig for the treasure; and, as soon as he gets in, he cries out, 'Plunder and prize-money! this is a desp'ut ugly awful dark berth.—Is there anybody on watch, I wonder?' Upon which that dreadful big black comes up and says, 'Yes, I calkilate I'm awake here; and now, as I've kept the treasures of the bold buccaneers till you've come back, if you admire we'll go off together.'—'Bear a smart hand, then, with the plunder into the boat below, afore the tide falls,' says Hornigold. 'Clouds and midnight! how dark it is, and the gale blows stiffer than ever!—Seas and billows! why, the tide's coming up the creek ten fathom strong!'—That's all as was ever heard of the captain or the nigger, I guess; for what between the water as come roaring up, and the rain as came pouring down, they were carried off to sea with all their plunder, and nobody never saw or heard of them sarpents again!"
"A most astonishing and mysterious providence, truly," said Downwithit, "and worthy of being recorded with the narratives of Baxter, Reynolds, Janeway, and Mather.—But what became of the others?"
"Why," said Mr. Pokehorn, "as for Louis, he turned out to be some awful great man or other, and considerable rich. He showed ould Deypester a thousand dollars next morning, and married Dortje afore night. But Keekenkettel went mad outright, because he couldn't never fix the treasure again, and found that he'd filled his pouches with shells and stones, as looked mighty like dollars and doubloons in the moonshine. Folk say he was only dreaming, and that there never warn't no such treasure for him to find; though they guessed that young Hudson got his money by the storm having washed it up out of the ground. But it's a true fact, it is, that the domine always arter, kept camfoozling about the Pirates' Plunder Creek as long as he lived, as he bargained to do; and whenever there's a mighty smart storm in the night, with a blink of moonlight, the say is that he's to be seen there still."
THE SPECTRE.
It was a wild and gloomy dream: to think upon it now, My very blood is chill'd with fear; and o'er my aching brow Cold clammy drops are stealing down, I tremble like a child Who listens to a story of the wonderful and wild! And well a stouter heart than mine might quake with dread, I ween;— But who hath ever gazed, like me, on such a fearful scene!
Sleep dropp'd upon my wearied eyes, and down I sank to rest; But no refreshing slumbers upon my senses press'd; Ten thousand lights before my eyes were dancing,—blue and red; Ten thousand hollow voices cried—I knew not what they said. My brain wheel'd round—faint grew my limbs—I cried and scream'd in vain; It seem'd as though some cursed imp had bound me with his chain! My tongue clave to the parched roof,—a raging thirst was mine, As I had drunk for months and months, nought else but saltest brine; Thirst such as parched pilgrims feel who range the desert wide, Or those who lie 'neath scorching skies upon a calmed tide. My temples throbb'd as they would burst; and, raging through my brain, The boiling blood rush'd furiously with sound like a hurricane! I rav'd and foam'd; my eyeballs strain'd, as though the nerves would burst, As by my side appear'd a form—a demon form accurst! And suddenly another came—another and yet more, All clad in dark habiliments;—a dozen—ay, a score! On me they leer'd with savage joy, and seized me, every one, And round and round about me went.—Oh! how my senses spun! I thought the leader of that band of sprites must surely be The Evil One, and I his prey. I vainly strove to flee: I tried to pray,—my tongue was dumb;—then down upon the ground I sank, and felt my every limb with fiery fetters bound. I know not now, how long I lay; my senses all were gone, And I with those infernal ones was left alone, alone. At length I started with affright, and felt, or seemed to feel, The blasts of hot sulphureous air across my forehead steal. A horrid thought, as on we mov'd, upon my senses burst, That they were bearing me away unto the place accurst. Oh! language vainly strives to paint the horrors of that ride! Two demons at my head and feet, and two on either side. The stars above were bloody red—each one seem'd doubly bright, And spectral faces glar'd in mine, with looks of grim delight. Still slowly, slowly on we mov'd, that ghastly troop and I: I questioned, where?—a fiendish laugh was only their reply. On, onward I was borne. At last they stay'd, and in my face A hideous visage peer'd on me with horrible grimace: Then down they threw me (still unbound) upon a bed of stone, And one by one they vanished, and I was left alone!