“A single moment! It is long—very long, since I have entered a sanctuary like this! Here is music; and there the frame for the gaudy tambour—these windows look on a landscape, soft as thine own nature; and yonder ocean can be admired without dreading its terrific power, or feeling disgust at its coarser scenes. Thou shouldst be happy, here!” The stranger turned, and perceived that he was alone. Disappointment was strongly painted on his handsome face; but, ere there was time for second thought, another voice was heard grumbling at the door of the saloon. “Compacts and treaties! What, in the name of good faith, hath brought thee hither? Is this the way to keep a cloak on our movements? or dost suppose that the Queen will knight me, for being known as thy correspondent?” “Lanterns and false-beacons!” returned the other, mimicking the voice of the disconcerted burgher, and pointing to the lights that still stood where last described. “Can the port be entered without respecting the land-marks and signals?” “This comes of moonlight and sentiment! When the girl should have been asleep, she is up, gazing at the stars, and disconcerting a burgher’s speculations—But fear thee not, Master Seadrift; my niece has discretion, and if we have no better pledge for her silence, there is that of necessity; since there is no one here for a confidant, but her old Norman valet, and the Patroon of Kinderhook, both of whom are dreaming of other matter than a little gainful traffic.” “Fear thee not, Alderman;” returned the other, still maintaining his air of mockery. “We have the pledge of character, if no other; since the uncle cannot part with reputation, without the niece sharing in the loss.” “What sin is there in pushing commerce a step beyond the limits of the law? These English are a nation of monopolists; and they make no scruple of tying us of the colonies, hand and foot, heart and soul, with their acts of Parliament, saying ‘with us shalt thou trade, or not at all.’ By the character of the best burgomaster of Amsterdam, and they came by the province, too, in no such honesty, that we should lie down and obey!” “Wherein there is much comfort to a dealer in the contraband. Justly reasoned, my worthy Alderman. Thy logic will, at any time, make a smooth pillow, especially if the adventure be not without its profit. And now, having so commendably disposed of the moral of our bargain, let us approach its legitimate, if not its lawful, conclusion. There,” he added, drawing a small bag from an inner pocket of his frock, and tossing it carelessly on a table; “there is thy gold. Eighty broad Johannes is no bad return for a few packages of furs; and even avarice itself will own, that six months is no long investment for the usury.”