Fast were the gates; no crevice showed. The ramparts, spiked with palisades, Grew higher as once round he rode; The arquebusiers prime the load, And drop to aim from ambuscades; No latch, no loophole aids. But one small hut its chimney thrust Between the timbers, close as they; Twice round and with a desperate trust Lord Herman muttered: "die I must: _There_, CHARGE!" and spurred through beam and clay-- "By heaven! he is away!" VI.--THE KILLS. In clouds of dust the muskets fire, And volleying oaths old Stuyvesant from: "Turn out! In yonder Kills he'll mire, Or drown, unless the fiends conspire. Mount! Follow! Still he must succumb-- That tide was never swum." Through hut and chimney, down the ditch And up the bank, plunge horse and man; And down the Kills of bramble pitch, Oft-stumbling, those old gray knees which, Hunting the raccoon, led the van; Now, limp yet game he ran. But cool and supple, Herman sat, His mind at work, his frame the horse's, And knew with each pulsation, that Past foe and fen, past crag, and flat, And marsh, the steed he nearer forces To the broad sea's recourses. "Old friend," he thought, "thou art too weak To try the Kills and drown, or falter, The while from shore their marksmen seek My heart. (Once o'er the Chesapeake I paddled oarless.) Lest the halter Be mine, I must not palter-- "Thou diest, though my marriage-gift: I still can swim. Poor Joost, adieu!" Ere ceased the heartfelt sigh he lift, The prospect widened: all adrift, The salty sluice burst into view, Where grappling tides fought through, And sucked to doom the venturous bear, And from his ferry swept the rower-- How wide, how terrible, how fair! Yet how inspiriting the air-- How tempts the long salt grass the mower! How treacherous the shore! Far up the right spread Newark Bay, To lone Secaucus wooded rock; Nor could the Kill von Kull convey Passaic's mountain flood away: In Arthur Kill the surges choke, The wild tides interlock. O'er Arthur Kill the Holland farms Their gambril roofs, red painted, show; Beyond the newer Yankee swarms-- His cider-presses spread their arms. Before, the squatter; back, the foe; And the dark waters flow. As that salt air the stallion felt, He whimpers gayly, as if still is Upon his sight his native Scheldt, Or Skagger Rack, or Little Belt,-- Their waving grass and silver lilies, Where browsed the amorous fillies. And o'er the tide some lady nags Blew back his challenge. Scarce could Herman Hold in his seat. "By John of Prague's True faith!" he thought, "thy spirit lags Not, Joost! Thy course thyself determine!" And plunges like a merman.