ason without this haste. Wilt take another look into the
dark lady's pages? A woman's mind is never known at the first answer!"

The speaker raised the rattan he still carried, and caused a page of
painted metal to turn on hinges that were so artfully concealed as not to
be visible. A new surface, with another extract, was seen.

"What is it, what is it, Patroon?" demanded the burgher, who appeared
greatly to distrust the discretion of the sorceress. "Follies and rhymes!
but this is the way of the whole sex; when nature has denied them tongues,
they invent other means of speech."

"Porters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about;
Thrice to thine, and thrice to thine,
And thrice again to make up nine."

"Rank nonsense!" continued the burgher! "It is well for those who can, to
add thrice and thrice to their stores; but look you, Patroon--it is a
thriving trade that can double the value of the adventure, and that with
reasonable risks, and months of patient watching."

"We have other pages," resumed Tiller, "but our affairs drag for want of
attending to them. One may read much good matter in the book of the
sorceress, when there is leisure and opportunity. I often take occasion,
in the calms, to look into her volume; and it is rare to find the same
moral twice told, as these brave seamen can swear."

The mariners at the oars confirmed this assertion, by their grave and
believing faces; while their superior caused the boat to quit the place,
and the image of the Water-Witch was left floating in solitude above her
proper element.

The arrival of the cutter produced no sensation among those who were found
on the deck of the brigantine. The mariner of the shawl welcomed his
companions, frankly and heartily; and then he left them for a minute to
make their observations, while he discharged some duty in the interior of
the vessel. The moments were not lost, as powerful curiosity induced all
the visiters to gaze about them, in the manner in which men study the
appearance of any celebrated object, that has long been known only by
reputation. It was quite apparent that even Alderman Van Beverout had
penetrated farther into the mysteries of the beautiful brigantine, than he
had ever before been. But it was Ludlow who gathered most from this brief
opportunity, and whose understanding glances so rapidly and eagerly ran
over all that a seaman could wish to examine.

An admirable neatness reigned in every p