“I tell you he was,” said the other. “Aye, and they say he buried a quantity of treasure on the little flat that runs out into the river, called the Devil’s Dans Kammer.” “The Devil’s Dans Kammer in your teeth!” cried the seaman. “I tell you Kidd never was up the Hudson—what the plague do you know of Kidd and his haunts?” “What do I know?” echoed the half-pay officer; “why, I was in London at the time of his trial, aye, and I had the pleasure of seeing him hanged at Execution Dock.” “Then, sir, let me tell you that you saw as pretty a fellow hanged as ever trod shoe leather. Aye!” putting his face nearer to that of the officer, “and there was many a coward looked on, that might much better have swung in his stead.” The half-pay officer was silenced; but the indignation thus pent up in his bosom glowed with intense vehemence in his single eye, which kindled like a coal. Peechy Prauw, who never could remain silent, now took up the word, and in a pacifying tone observed that the gentleman certainly was in the right. Kidd never did bury money up the Hudson, nor indeed in any of those parts, though many affirm the fact. It was Bradish and others of the buccaneers who had buried money, some said in Turtle Bay, others on Long-Island, others in the neighborhood of Hell Gate. Indeed, added he, I recollect an adventure of Mud Sam, the negro fisherman, many years ago, which some think had something to do with the buccaneers. As we are all friends here, and as it will go no farther, I’ll tell it to you. “Upon a dark night many years ago, as Sam was returning from fishing in Hell Gate—” Here the story was nipped in the bud by a sudden movement from the unknown, who, laying his iron fist on the table, knuckles downward, with a quiet force that indented the very boards, and looking grimly over his shoulder, with the grin of an angry bear. “Heark’ee, neighbor,” said he, with significant nodding of the head, “you’d better let the buccaneers and their money alone—they’re not for old men and old women to meddle with. They fought hard for their money, they gave body and soul for it, and wherever it lies buried, depend upon it he must have a tug with the devil who gets it.”