“Pots tousends, no!” replied the little doctor, hastily.  He now ordered his companions to keep close by him and to maintain the most inflexible silence.  That certain precautions must be taken, and ceremonies used to prevent the evil spirits which keep about buried treasure from doing them any harm.  The doctor then drew a circle round the place, enough to include the whole party.  He next gathered dry twigs and leaves, and made a fire, upon which he threw certain drugs and dried herbs which he had brought in his basket.  A thick smoke rose, diffusing a potent odor, savoring marvellously of brimstone and assafoetida, which, however grateful it might be to the olfactory nerves of spirits, nearly strangled poor Wolfert, and produced a fit of coughing and wheezing that made the whole grove resound.  Doctor Knipperhausen then unclasped the volume which he had brought under his arm, which was printed in red and black characters in German text.  While Wolfert held the lanthorn, the doctor, by the aid of his spectacles, read off several forms of conjuration in Latin and German.  He then ordered Sam to seize the pick-axe and proceed to work.  The close-bound soil gave obstinate signs of not having been disturbed for many a year.  After having picked his way through the surface, Sam came to a bed of sand and gravel, which he threw briskly to right and left with the spade.

“Hark!” said Wolfert, who fancied he heard a trampling among the dry leaves, and a rustling through the bushes.  Sam paused for a moment, and they listened.  No footstep was near.  The bat flitted about them in silence; a bird roused from its nest by the light which glared up among the trees, flew circling about the flame.  In the profound stillness of the woodland they could distinguish the current rippling along the rocky shore, and the distant murmuring and roaring of Hell Gate.

Sam continued his labors, and had already digged a considerable hole.  The doctor stood on the edge, reading formulae every now and then from the black letter volume, or throwing more drugs and herbs upon the fire; while Wolfert bent anxiously over the pit, watching every stroke of the spade.  Any one witnessing the scene thus strangely lighted up by fire, lanthorn, and the reflection of Wolfert’s red mantle, might have mistaken the little doctor for some foul magician, busied in his incantations, and the grizzled-headed Sam as some swart goblin, obedient to his commands.

At length the spade of the fisherman struck upon something that sounded hollow.  The sound vibrated to Wolfert’s heart.  He struck his spade again.

“’Tis a chest,” said Sam.

“Full of gold, I’ll warrant it!” cried Wolfert, clasping his hands with rapture.

Scarcely had he uttered the words when a sound from overhead caught his ear.  He cast up his eyes, and lo! by the expiring light of the fire he beheld, just over the disk of the rock, what appeared to be the grim visage of the drowned buccaneer, grinning hideously down upon him.