Nick had extended his hand, and already was that of the Great Adversary reached to grasp it, when a loud unearthly shout rang through the air.
Nick bounded from the hole at a single leap. The next instant, with a yell, two figures pounced upon the stranger in the pit. There were appalling screams and cries and all the struggle of fierce encounter. They seemed to breathe fire and smoke at each other: at one time the fight raged in the hole, then it seemed to be up the bank near Kidd's Rock, at another time in the air. In the moonlight Nick could see his friend hard beset, and he noticed that he suffered most from a grim old fellow in a cocked hat, with a slash across his nose. The other was square-built, with pistols in his belt, and a hanger at his side.
As Nick began to doubt how the battle would terminate, he quietly slipped into his boat, put off a short distance from the shore, and rested on his oars to watch the result.
In a few minutes he heard his name shouted from the beach. Nick was too wary to be entrapped by any feeling of sympathy. He kept a dead silence. The noise and uproar lasted for a short time longer, and then grew more and more distant, until it died away in the woods of Great Neck.
Nick now plied his oars vigorously, occasionally pausing to listen. At the same time he was not free from an apprehension that on looking round he might find his late visitor stationed in the bow of his boat. But he reached Matinecock in safety.
As he stepped ashore he was not a little dismayed at discovering the stranger seated on a rock, apparently as cool as if nothing had happened; but on closer examination Nick observed that his dress was very much dilapidated, and his face begrimed with smut and dirt.
'I hope you're not hurt,' said he, in a tone which was meant to be sympathizing. 'Those fellows were a little too much for you.'
'I told you how it would be,' said the other in a savage voice. 'They got wind of it somehow.'
'Who were they?'
'No matter. They are the most troublesome of all my boarders.'