“Threw them all overboard,” was the answer. A dead pause followed the reply. Peechy Prauw sank quietly back, like a man who had unwarily stolen upon the lair of a sleeping lion. The honest burghers cast fearful glances at the deep scar slashed across the visage of the stranger, and moved their chairs a little farther off. The seaman, however, smoked on without moving a muscle, as though he either did not perceive, or did not regard, the unfavorable effect he had produced upon his hearers. The half-pay officer was the first to break the silence, for he was continually tempted to make ineffectual head against this tyrant of the seas, and to regain his lost consequence in the eyes of his ancient companions. He now tried to match the gunpowder tales of the stranger by others equally tremendous. Kidd, as usual, was his hero, concerning whom he seemed to have picked up many of the floating traditions of the province. The seaman had always evinced a settled pique against the one-eyed warrior. On this occasion he listened with peculiar impatience. He sat with one arm akimbo, the other elbow on the table, the hand holding on to the small pipe he was pettishly puffing, his legs crossed, drumming with one foot on the ground, and casting every now and then the side glance of a basilisk at the prosing captain. At length the latter spoke of Kidd’s having ascended the Hudson with some of his crew, to land his plunder in secrecy. “Kidd up the Hudson!” burst forth the seaman, with a tremendous oath; “Kidd never was up the Hudson!” “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.”[1] [1] A huge, flat rock, projecting into the Hudson River above the Highlands. “The Devil’s Dans Kammer in your teeth!”[1] cried the seaman. “I tell you Kidd never was up the Hudson. What a plague do you know of Kidd and his haunts?” [1] “In your teeth,” a phrase to denote direct opposition or defiance. “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 landlubber[1] looked on that might much better have swung in his stead.” [1] A term of contempt used by seamen for those who pass their lives on land. 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.