rs. Many repaired to the scene of the previous night's
adventures: but though they found the very place of the digging, they
discovered nothing that compensated for their trouble. Some say they
found the fragments of an oaken chest and an iron pot lid, which
savored strongly of hidden money; and that in the old family vault
there were traces of holes and boxes, but this is all very dubious.

In fact, the secret of all this story has never to this day been
discovered: whether any treasure was ever actually buried at that
place, whether, if so, it was carried off at night by those who had
buried it; or whether it still remains there under the guardianship of
gnomes and spirits until it shall be properly sought for, is all matter
of conjecture. For my part I incline to the latter opinion; and make no
doubt that great sums lie buried, both there and in many other parts of
this island and its neighborhood, ever since the times of the
buccaneers and the Dutch colonists; and I would earnestly recommend the
search after them to such of my fellow citizens as are not engaged in
any other speculations.

There were many conjectures formed, also, as to who and what was the
strange man of the seas who had domineered over the little fraternity
at Corlears Hook for a time; disappeared so strangely, and reappeared
so fearfully. Some supposed him a smuggler stationed at that place to
assist his comrades in landing their goods among the rocky coves of the
island. Others that he was a buccaneer; one of the ancient comrades
either of Kidd or Bradish, returned to convey away treasures formerly
hidden in the vicinity. The only circumstance that throws any thing
like a vague light over this mysterious matter is a report that
prevailed of a strange foreign-built shallop, with the look of a
piccaroon, having been seen hovering about the Sound for several days
without landing or reporting herself, though boats were seen going to
and from her at night: and that she was seen standing out of the mouth
of the harbor, in the gray of the dawn after the catastrophe of the
money-diggers.

I must not omit to mention another report, also, which I confess is
rather apocryphal, of the buccaneer, who was supposed to have been
drowned, being seen before daybreak, with a lanthorn in his hand,
seated astride his great sea-chest and sailing through Hell Gate, which
just then began to roar and bellow with redoubled fury.

While all the gossip world was thus fi