Not a rope varied from its true direction; not a sail, but it resembled the neat folds of some prudent house wife; not a mast or a yard was there, but it rose into the air, or stretched its arms, with the most fastidious attention to symmetry. All was airy, fanciful, and full of grace, seeming to lend to the fabric a character of unreal lightness and speed. As the boat drew near her side, a change of the air caused the buoyant bark to turn, like a vane, in its current; and as the long and pointed proportions of her head-gear came into view, Ludlow saw beneath the bowsprit an image that might be supposed to make, by means of allegory, some obvious allusions to the character of the vessel. A female form, fashioned with the carver’s best skill, stood on the projection of the cut-water. The figure rested lightly on the ball of one foot, while the other was suspended in an easy attitude, resembling the airy posture of the famous Mercury of the Bolognese. The drapery was fluttering, scanty, and of a light sea-green tint, as if it had imbibed a hue from the element beneath. The face was of that dark bronzed color which human ingenuity has, from time immemorial, adopted as the best medium to portray a superhuman expression. The locks were dishevelled, wild, and rich; the eye, full of such a meaning as might be fancied to glitter in the organs of a sorceress; while a smile so strangely meaning and malign played about the mouth, that the young sailor started, when it first met his view as if a living thing had returned his look. “Witchcraft and necromancy!” grumbled the Alderman, as this extraordinary image came suddenly on his vision also. “Here is a brazen-looking hussy and one who might rob the Queen’s treasury, itself, without remorse! Your eyes are young, Patroon; what is that the minx holds so impudently above her head?” “It seems an open book, with letters of red written on its pages. One need not be a conjurer, to divine it is no extract from the Bible.” “Nor from the statute books of Queen Anne. I warrant me, ’tis a leger of profit gained in her many wanderings. Goggling and leers! the bold air of the confident creature is enough to put an honest man out of countenance!” “Will read the motto of the witch?” demanded he of the India-shawl, whose eye had been studying the detail of the brigantine’s equipment, rather than attending to the object which so much attracted the looks of his companions. “The night air has taut’ned the cordage of that flying-jib-boom, fellows, until it begins to lift its nose like a squeamish cockney, when he holds it over salt-water! See to it, and bring the spar in line; else shall we have a reproof from the sorceress, who little likes to have any of her limbs deranged. Here, gentlemen, the opinions of the lady may be read, as clearly as woman’s mind can ever be fathomed.”