took possession of a corner room of the inn, to which his chest was
removed with great difficulty. Here he had remained ever since, keeping
about the inn and its vicinity. Sometimes, it is true, he disappeared
for one, two, or three days at a time, going and returning without
giving any notice or account of his movements. He always appeared to
have plenty of money, though often of very strange, outlandish coinage;
and he regularly paid his bill every evening before turning in.

He had fitted up his room to his own fancy, having slung a hammock from
the ceiling instead of a bed, and decorated the walls with rusty
pistols and cutlasses of foreign workmanship. A great part of his time
was passed in this room, seated by the window, which commanded a wide
view of the Sound, a short old-fashioned pipe in his mouth, a glass of
rum toddy at his elbow, and a pocket telescope in his hand, with which
he reconnoitred every boat that moved upon the water. Large
square-rigged vessels seemed to excite but little attention; but the
moment he descried any thing with a shoulder-of-mutton sail, or that a
barge, or yawl, or jolly boat hove in sight, up went the telescope, and
he examined it with the most scrupulous attention.

All this might have passed without much notice, for in those times the
province was so much the resort of adventurers of all characters and
climes that any oddity in dress or behavior attracted but little
attention. But in a little while this strange sea monster, thus
strangely cast up on dry land, began to encroach upon the
long-established customs and customers of the place; to interfere in a
dictatorial manner in the affairs of the ninepin alley and the
bar-room, until in the end he usurped an absolute command over the
little inn. It was in vain to attempt to withstand his authority. He
was not exactly quarrelsome, but boisterous and peremptory, like one
accustomed to tyrannize on a quarter deck; and there was a dare-devil
air about every thing he said and did, that inspired a wariness in all
bystanders. Even the half-pay officer, so long the hero of the club,
was soon silenced by him; and the quiet burghers stared with wonder at
seeing their inflammable man of war so readily and quietly
extinguished.

And then the tales that he would tell were enough to make a peaceable
man's hair stand on end. There was not a sea fight, or marauding or
free-booting adventure that had happened within the last twenty years
but