Chapter 16 - Page 2

knowing
the past or the future, the quarter of the heavens from which the winds
are to come, or the season of the hurricanes, than by putting a question
to our mistress. She who knows so much of hidden matters, may tell us what
you wish to know. We will have her called, by the usual summons."

Thus saving, the mariner of the shawl gravely quitted his guests, and
descended into the inferior cabins of the vessel. It was but a moment,
before there arose sounds from some secret though not distant quarter of
the brigantine, that caused, in some measure, both surprise and pleasure
to Ludlow and the Patroon. Their companion had his motives for being
insensible to either of these emotions.

After a short and rapid symphony, a wind-instrument took up a wild strain,
while a human voice was again heard chanting to the music, words which
were so much involved by the composition of the air, as to render it
impossible to trace more than that their burthen was a sort of mysterious
incantation of some ocean deity.

"Squeaking and flutes!" grumbled Myndert, ere the last sounds were fairly
ended. "This is downright heathenish; and a plain-dealing man, who does
business above-board, has good reason to wish himself honestly at church.
What have we to do with land-witches, or water-witches, or any other
witchcraft, that we stay in the brigantine, now it is known that my niece
is not to be found aboard her; and, moreover, even admitting that we were
disposed to traffic, the craft has nothing in her that a man of Manhattan
should want. The deepest bog of thy manor, Patroon, is safer ground to
tread on, than the deck of a vessel that has got a reputation like that of
this craft."

The scenes of which he was a witness, had produced a powerful effect on
Van Staats of Kinderhook. Of a slow imagination but of a powerful and vast
frame, he was not easily excited, either to indulge in fanciful images, or
to suffer personal apprehension. Only a few years had passed since men,
who in other respects were enlightened, firmly believed in the existence
of supernatural agencies in the control of the affairs of this life; and
though the New-Netherlanders had escaped the infatuation which prevailed
so generally in the religious provinces of New-England, a credulous
superstition, of a less active quality, possessed the minds of the most
intelligent of the Dutch colonists, and even of their descendants so
lately as in our own times. The art of divination was particularly in
favor; and it rarely happened, that any inexplicable event affected the
fortunes or comforts of the good provincialists, without their having
recourse to some one of the more renowned fortunetellers of the country,
for an explanation. Men of