ock. Garrett Van Horne's new chimney was
split almost from top to bottom; and Boffne Mildeberger was struck
speechless from his bald-faced mare just as he was riding into
town. . . . At length the storm abated; the thunder sank into a growl,
and the setting sun, breaking from under the fringed borders of the
clouds, made the broad bosom of the bay to gleam like a sea of molten
gold.

The word was given from the fort that a ship was standing up the
bay. . . . She was a stout, round, Dutch-built vessel, with high bow
and poop, and bearing Dutch colors. The evening sun gilded her
bellying canvas as she came riding over the long waving billows. The
sentinel who had given notice of her approach declared that he first
got sight of her when she was in the center of the bay; and that she
broke suddenly on his sight, just as if she had come out of the bosom
of the black thunder-clouds. . . . The ship was now repeatedly hailed,
but made no reply, and, passing by the fort, stood on up the Hudson. A
gun was brought to bear on her, and, with some difficulty, loaded and
fired by Hans Van Pelt, the garrison not being expert in artillery.
The shot seemed absolutely to pass through the ship, and to skip along
the water on the other side; but no notice was taken of it! What was
strange, she had all her sails set, and sailed right against wind and
tide, which were both down the river. . . . Thus she kept on, away up
the river, lessening and lessening in the evening sunshine, until she
faded from sight like a little white cloud melting away in the summer
sky. . . .

Messengers were dispatched to various places on the river, but they
returned without any tidings--the ship had made no port. Day after
day, week after week elapsed, but she never returned down the Hudson.
As, however, the council seemed solicitous for intelligence they had it
in abundance. The captains of the sloops seldom arrived without
bringing some report of having seen the strange ship at different parts
of the river--sometimes near the Palisades, sometimes off Croton Point,
and sometimes in the Highlands; but she never was reported as having
been seen above the Highlands. The crews of the sloops, it is true,
generally differed among themselves in their accounts of these
apparitions; but that may have arisen from the uncertain situations in
which they saw her. Sometimes it was by the flashes of the
thunder-storm lighting up a pitchy night, and giving glimpse