His pursuers now turned off to meet their companions.  Sam sliding silently down the surface of the rock, let himself quietly into his skiff, cast loose the fastening, and abandoned himself to the rapid current, which in that place runs like a mill-stream, and soon swept him off from the neighborhood.  It was not, however, until he had drifted a great distance that he ventured to ply his oars; when he made his skiff dart like an arrow through the strait of Hell Gate, never heeding the danger of Pot, Frying-pan, or Hog’s-back itself; nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ancient farm-house of the Suydams.

Here the worthy Peechy paused to take breath and to take a sip of the gossip tankard that stood at his elbow.  His auditors remained with open mouths and outstretched necks, gaping like a nest of swallows for an additional mouthful.

“And is that all?” exclaimed the half-pay officer.

“That’s all that belongs to the story,” said Peechy Prauw.

“And did Sam never find out what was buried by the redcaps?” said Wolfert, eagerly; whose mind was haunted by nothing but ingots and doubloons.

“Not that I know of; he had no time to spare from his work; and to tell the truth, he did not like to run the risk of another race among the rocks.  Besides, how should he recollect the spot where the grave had been digged? every thing would look different by daylight.  And then, where was the use of looking for a dead body, when there was no chance of hanging the murderers?”

“Aye, but are you sure it was a dead body they buried?” said Wolfert.

“To be sure,” cried Peechy Prauw, exultingly.  “Does it not haunt in the neighborhood to this very day?”

“Haunts!” exclaimed several of the party, opening their eyes still wider and edging their chairs still closer.

“Aye, haunts,” repeated Peechy; “has none of you heard of father red-cap that haunts the old burnt farm-house in the woods, on the border of the Sound, near Hell Gate?”

“Oh, to be sure, I’ve heard tell of something of the kind, but then I took it for some old wives’ fable.”

“Old wives’ fable or not,” said Peechy Prauw, “that farmhouse stands hard by the very spot.  It’s been unoccupied time out of mind, and stands in a wild, lonely part of the coast; but those who fish in the neighborhood have often heard strange noises there; and lights have been seen about the wood at night; and an old fellow in a red cap has been seen at the windows more than once, which people take to be the ghost of the body that was buried there.  Once upon a time three soldiers took shelter in the building for the night, and rummaged it from top to bottom, when they found old father red-cap astride of a cider-barrel in the cellar, with a jug in one hand and a goblet in the other.  He offered them a drink out of his goblet, but just as one of the soldiers was putting it to his mouth-Whew! a flash of fire blazed through the cellar, blinded every mother’s son of them for several minutes, and when they recovered their eye-sight, jug, goblet, and red-cap had vanished, and nothing but the empty cider-barrel remained.”