tired. He had several tumbles among heaps of brick, stone and mortar, which he thought much more of than the occasional remarks which he was obliged to hear from the boys, boatmen, and workmen in Dutch and English, little complimentary to himself or his agility. But he had a great object in view, and had bound up each corporal agent to the terrible feat of finding out "where Mr. Hoaks was a going to."

He

He lost sight of the roquelaire and its wearer behind a huge heap of sand, stone, and lime, which showed where the present edifice of Columbia College was already begun. Scrambling over this, and bruising his shins among some large logs of timber, he paused to take breath, and again saw the crimson garment disappearing at a distance, in a thicket of evergreens and brambles, on the banks of the river. looked around him, and saw no human being near. He had heard of the Indians, the smugglers, and Captain Kidd's ghost, and although the sun was yet half an hour high, he could not help wishing himself in his shop; but the instinct of curiosity, combined with the desire of revenge, overcame his timidity. He renewed the pursuit, plunged into the thicket, and again caught a glimpse of the roquelaire among a pile of rocks. Towards this he crept on tiptoe, keeping a care

ful watch on both sides as he went, and at length ensconced himself behind a massy block of granite. Peeping through an aperture between this rock and others which lay heaped against it, he observed a little cove in which a small pettiauger was lying. It was painted black and red, and its masts, naked of sails and cordage, were of the same hue. It was an ill-looking thing to get into; and at school Mr. Vince had heard of the river Styx, its boat, and the grim ferryman who carried over the ghosts and ghostesses. The low sun was now looking red through the thick hazy air, and a streak of dusky fire quivered all along the water from the opposite shore to the pettiauger, around which the small billows seemed to form lambent tongues of forky flame of a bright but infernal ruddiness. And the cockney was all alone. Suddenly he heard a voice, which was that of Oaks, now rough and hoarse, as if made husky by sulphureous and tartarean fogs. It distinctly invocated two fiends, and ugly ones too, for it called aloud, "You two black infernal devils, come up!"

Reader, if you never happened to be scared in all your life, you cannot realize how much the Londoner was frightened at these awful words, articulated in that preternatural tone, made more horrible by its being a manifest exaggeration of

W

a familiar voice, and conveying the terrible intimation that the speaker was colleagued with the powers of darkness. Vince looked on the broad Hudson rolling gloomily by; he looked also at the locker or cabin of the pettiauger, just big enough for a man to lie coiled up within it. The terrible voice again sounded, and two others, harsh as the grating of the hinges of the Pandemonian gates, replied in a wild jargon, broken by shouts of horrid laughter. Again Vince beheld the roquelaire approaching, and behind it two swarthy stalwart forms, in deep red jackets and caps, their black arms bare from the shoulders, and their eyes shooting a demoniac and unnatural lustre. Their brawny arms brandished enormous pieces of timber, and with every volley of discordant sounds which broke from their mouths, two rows of long white grinders showed themselves, which seemed able to despatch many such christians as Mr. Vince at a luncheon.

The forms approached, the jabber became more fearfully loud, and the cockney scarce knowing how or why, effected a passage through the rocks, and squeezed himself into the locker, pulling the door after him, as close as he was able. There he lay, in an uneasy posture, trembling with the presentiment of some horrible

event; but he remained not long in suspense. Footsteps approached, the same grating voices were heard, the speakers leaped on board, words in the same unintelligible language were interchanged, in which Mr. Vince, clearly distinguished certain appalling execrations—and the boat suddenly sprang forward as if self-impelled. A confusion of noises, like that which might be heard from the mouth of the bottomless pit, burst upon the tailor's ears. The waves, tormented by the dividing prow, lashed its sides, and broke over it with a crash that seemed powerful enough to shiver adamant. The cockney was separated only by a single plank, as Aratus says, (on which passage Longinus passes a criticism of doubtful justice,) from the depths beneath and the waters around; thence, as he lay uneasily with his face to the bottom of the boat, he heard a swell of booming thunders: the very voice of chaos seemed reverberating in the hollow of his ear; and along with this was a roaring as of tigers and lions, a screaming of wrath, terror, and pain, in brief, a mingling of all frightful and dolorous noises, combining the howlings of every beast of the desert, with others yet more mysteriously fearful. Two huge feet, shod with spikes, were pressed against the doors of the locker, while through his peep-hole, there gleamed on the

prisoner's eye, the apparition of four brawny black arms, with their muscles shining and swelling to a Patagonian enormity. They wielded two immense oars, and at every pull the angry river, against whose mighty current they were struggling, uttered a startling murmur, like that of a giant roused from his heavy slumbers. And they pulled and pulled, those two pair of huge black arms, and the black bark bounded on and on amidst the intolerable roar of waters; while her joints groaned and creaked and gaped, and the bitter salt water leaked in, and Vince became as sick as he was frightened, and he fell into a From this he did not recover in less than an hour, when he was awakened by a grating sound from below.

swoon.

When he had enough strength and consciousness restored to peep through his aperture, he saw no one on board of the boat, which was now rocking in the surf by the side of a low bank, the bottom scraping and thumping upon the beach. This fact Vince knew not, but he felt the boat tossing and knocking about, and wished he was out of it. He ventured by degrees to open the doors of his purgatory, to protrude his head, and at last to draw out his person. The evening was cloudy, and the June twilight was obscured with unusual gloom. On one side of