> who frequently alarmed the patrons of the house by putting powder into

their pipes and attaching briers beneath their horses' tails, and who

naturally turned pirate when he became older, taking with him to sea his

boon companion, an ill-disposed, ill-favored blackamoor named Pluto, who

had been employed about the tavern. When the landlord died, Vanderscamp

possessed himself of this property, fitted it up with plunder, and at

intervals he had his gang ashore,--such a crew of singing, swearing,

drinking, gaming devils as Communipaw had never seen the like of; yet the

residents could not summon activity enough to stop the goings-on that

made the Wild Goose a disgrace to their village. The British authorities,

however, caught three of the swashbucklers and strung them up on Gibbet

Island, and things that went on badly in Communipaw after that went on

with quiet and secrecy.



The pirate and his henchmen were returning to the tavern one night, after

a visit to a rakish-looking vessel in the offing, when a squall broke in

such force as to give their skiff a leeway to the place of executions. As

they rounded that lonely reef a creaking noise overhead caused

Vanderscamp to look up, and he could not repress a shudder as he saw the

bodies of his three messmates, their rags fluttering and their chains

grinding in the wind.



Don't you want to see your friends? sneered Pluto. You, who are never

afraid of living men, what do you fear from the dead?



Nothing, answered the pirate. Then, lugging forth his bottle, he took a

long pull at it, and holding it toward the dead felons, he shouted,

Here's fair weather to you, my lads in the wind, and if you should be

walking the rounds to-night, come in to supper.



A clatter of bones and a creak of chains sounded like a laugh. It was

midnight when the boat pulled in at Communipaw, and as the storm

continued Vanderscamp, drenched to the skin, made quick time to the Wild

Goose. As he entered, a sound of revelry overhead smote his ear, and,

being no less astonished than in need of cordials, he hastened up-stairs

and flung open the door. A table stood there, furnished with jugs and

pipes and cans, and by light of candles that burned as blue as brimstone

could be seen the three gallows-birds from Gibbet Island, with halters on

their necks, clinking their tankards together and trolling forth a

drinking-song.



Starting back with affright as the corpses hailed him with lifted arms

and turned their fishy eyes on him, Vanderscamp slipped at the door and

fell headlong to the bottom of the stairs. Next morning he was found

there by the neighbors, dead to a certainty, and was put away in the

Dutch churchyard at Bergen on the Sunday following. As the house was

rifled and deserted by its occupants, it was hinted that the negro had

betrayed his master to his fellow-buccaneers, and that he, Pluto, was no

other than the devil in disguise. But he was not, for his skiff was seen

floating bottom up in the bay soon after, and his drowned body lodged

among the rocks at the foot of the pirates' gallows.



For a long time afterwards the island was regarded as a place that

required purging with bell, book, and candle, for shadows were reported

there and faint lights that shot into the air, and to this day, with the

great immigrant station on it and crowds going and coming all the time,

the Battery boatmen prefer not to row around it at night, for they are

likely to see the shades of the soldier and his mistress who were drowned

off the place one windy night, when the girl was aiding the fellow to

escape confinement in the guard-house, to say nothing of Vanderscamp and

his felons.