“It is but an arm of the sea, as I told thee, skipper,”
said John Fleming, the mate of the “Halve-Mane,”
standing ready to jam down the tiller and bringto,
if his master should agree with him in opinion.

Hudson stood by his steersman, with folded arms,
now looking at the high-water mark on the rocks,
which betrayed a falling tide, now turning his ear
slightly forward to catch the cry of the man who stood
heaving the lead from the larboard bow. The wind
drew lightly across the starboard quarter, and, with a
counter-tide, the little vessel stole on scarce perceptibly,
though her mainsail was kept full—the slowly
passing forest trees on the shore giving the lie to the
merry and gurgling ripple at the prow.

The noble river, or creek, which they had followed
in admiring astonishment for fifty miles, had hitherto
opened fairly and broadly before them, though, once
or twice, its widening and mountain-girt bosom had
deceived the bold navigator into the belief, that he
was entering upon some inland lake. The wind still
blew kindly and steadily from the southeast, and the
sunset of the second day—a spectacle of tumultuous
and gorgeous glory which Hudson attributed justly
to the more violet atmospheric laws of an unsettled
continent—had found them apparently closed in by
impenetrable mountains, and running immediately on
the head shore of an extended arm of the sea.

“She'll strike before she can follow her helm,”
cried the young sailor in an impatient tone, yet still
with habitual obedience keeping her duly on her
course.

“Port a little!” answered the skipper, a moment
after, as if he had not heard the querulous comment
of his mate.

Fleming's attention was withdrawn an instant by
a low guttural sound of satisfaction, which reached
his ear as the head of the vessel went round, and,
casting his eye amidships, he observed the three
Indians who had come off to the Half-Moon in a
canoe, and had been received on board by the master
standing together in the chains, and looking forward
to the rocks they were approaching with countenances
of the most eager interest.

“Master Hendrick!” he vociferated in the tone of
a man who can contain his anger no longer, “will you
look at these grinning red-devils, who are rejoicing to
see you run so blindly ashore?”

The adventurous little bark was by this time within
a biscuit toss of a rocky point that jutted forth into
the river with the grace of a lady's foot dallying with
the water in her bath; and, beyond the sedgy bank
disappeared in an apparent inlet, barely deep enough,
it seemed to the irritated steersman, to shelter a
canoe.

As the Half-Moon obeyed her last order, and headed
a point more to the west, Hudson strode forward to
the bow, and sprang upon the windlass, stretching his
gaze eagerly into the bosom of the hills that were now
darkening with the heavy shadows of twilight, though
the sky was still gorgeously purple overhead.

The crew had by this time gathered with unconscious
apprehension at the halyards, ready to let go
at the slightest gesture of the master, but, in the slow
progress of the little bark, the minute or two which
she took to advance beyond the point on which his
eye was fixed, seemed an age of suspense.

The Half-Moon seemed now almost immoveable,
for the current, which convinced Hudson there was
a passage beyond, set her back from the point with
increasing force, and the wind lulled a little with the
sunset. Inch by inch, however, she crept on, till at
last the silent skipper sprang from the windlass upon
the bowsprit, and running out with the agility of a
boy, gave a single glance ahead, and the next moment
had the tiller in his hand, and cried out with a
voice of thunder, “Stand by the halyards! helm's-a-lee!”

In a moment, as if his words had been lightning,
the blocks rattled, the heavy boom swung round like
a willow spray, and the white canvass, after fluttering
an instant in the wind, filled and drew steadily on the
other tack.

Looks of satisfaction were exchanged between the
crew, who expected the next instant an order to take
in the sail and drop anchor; but the master was at the
helm, and to their utter consternation, he kept her
steadily to the wind, and drove straight on, while a
gorge, that, in the increasing darkness, seemed the
entrance to a cavern, opened its rocky sides as they
advanced.

The apprehensions of the crew were half lost in
their astonishment at the grandeur of the scene. The
cliffs seemed to close up behind them; a mountain,
that reached apparently to the now colorless clouds,
rose up gigantic, in the increasing twilight, over the
prow; on the right, where the water seemed to bend,
a craggy precipice extended its threatening wall; and
in the midst of this round bay, which seemed to them
to be an enclosed lake in the bottom of an abyss, the
wind suddenly took them aback, the Halve-Mane lost
her headway, and threatened to go on the rocks with
the current, and audible curses at his folly reached
the ears of the determined master.

More to divert their attention than with a prognostic
of the direction of the wind, Hudson gave the
order to tack, and, more slowly this time, but still
with sufficient expedition, the movement was executed,
and the flapping sails swung round. The halyards
were not belayed before the breeze, rushing
down a steep valley on the left, struck full on
the larboard quarter, and, running sharp past the face
of the precipice over the starboard bow, Hudson
pointed out, exultingly, to his astonished men, the
broad waters of the mighty river, extending far through
the gorge beyond—the dim purple of the lingering

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

day, which had been long lost to the cavernous and
overshadowed pass they had penetrated, tinting its far
bosom like the last faint hue of the expiring dolphin.

The exulting glow of triumph suffused the face
of the skipper, and relinquishing the tiller once more
to the mortified Fleming, he walked forward to look
out for an anchorage. The Indians, who still stood
in the chains together, and who had continued to
express their satisfaction as the vessel made her way
through the pass, now pointed eagerly to a little
bay on the left, across which a canoe was shooting
like the reflection of a lance in the air, and, the wind
dying momently away, Hudson gave the order to
round to, and dropped his anchor for the night.

In obedience to the politic orders of Hudson the
men were endeavoring, by presents and signs, to
induce the Indians to leave the vessel, and the master
himself stood on the poop with his mate, gazing
back on the wonderful scene they had passed through.

“This passage,” said Hudson, musingly, “has been
rent open by an earthquake, and the rocks look still as
if they felt the agony of the throe.”

“It is a pity the earthquake did its job so raggedly,
then!” answered his sulky companion, who had not
yet forgiven the mountains for the shame their zig-zag
precipices had put upon his sagacity.

At that instant a sound, like that of a heavy body
sliding into the water, struck the ear of Fleming,
and looking quickly over the stern, he saw one of
the Indians swimming from the vessel with a pillow
in his hand, which he had evidently stolen from the
cabin window. To seize a musket, which lay ready
for attack on the quarter-deck, and fire upon the poor
savage, was the sudden thought and action of a man on
the watch, for a vent to incensed feelings.

The Indian gave a yell which mingled wildly with
the echoes of the report from the reverberating hills,
and springing waist-high out of the water, the gurgling
eddy closed suddenly over his head.

The canoe in which the other savages were already
embarked shot away, like an arrow, to the shore, and
Hudson, grieved and alarmed inexpressibly at the foolhardy
rashness of his mate, ordered all hands to arms,
and established a double watch for the night.

Hour after hour, the master and the non-repentant
Fleming paced fore and aft, each in his own
quarter of the vessel, watching the shore and the
dark face of the water with straining eyes: but no
sound came from the low cliff round which the flying
canoe had vanished, and the stars seemed to
wink almost audibly in the dread stillness of nature.
The men alarmed at the evident agitation of Hudson,
who, in these pent-up waters, anticipated a most effective
and speedy revenge from the surrounding
tribes, drowsed not upon their watch, and the gray
light of the morning began to show faintly over the
mountains before the anxious master withdrew his
aching eyes from the still and star waters.