BENIDEN DE BERG; OR, THE UNDercliff.

A TALE OF THE VOYAGE OF HENDRICK HUDSON.

BY N. P. WILLIS.

"It is but an arm of the sea, as I told thee, skipper," said John Fleming, the mate of the "Haloe-Mane," standing ready to jam down the tiller, and bring-to, if his master should agree with him in opinion. Hudson stood by his steersman with folded arms, now looking at the high-water mark on the rocks, which betrayed a falling tide; now turning his ear slightly forward, to catch the cry of the man who stood heaving the lead from the larboard bow. The wind drew lightly across the starboard quarter, and, with a counter-tide, the little vessel stole on scarce perceptibly, though her mainsail was kept full,-the slowlypassing forest-trees on the shore giving the lie to the merry and gurgling ripple at the prow.

The noble river, or creek, which they had followed in admiring astonishment for fifty miles, had hitherto opened fairly and broadly before them, though once or twice its widening and mountain-girt bosom had deceived the bold navigator into the belief that he was entering upon some inland lake. The wind still blew kindly and steadily from the south-east, and the sunset of the second day-a spectacle of tumultuous and gorgeous glory, which Hudson attributed justly to the more violent atmospheric laws of an unsettled continent-had found them apparently closed in by impenetrable mountains, and running immediately on the head-shore of an extended arm of the sea.

"She'll strike before she can follow her helm!" cried the young sailor in an impatient tone, yet still, with habitual obedience, keeping her duly on her course.

"Port a little!" answered the skipper a moment after, as if he had not heard the querulous comment of his mate.

Fleming's attention was withdrawn an instant by a low guttural sound of satisfaction which reached his ear as the head of the vessel went round, and, casting his eye a-midships, he observed the three Indians who had come off to the Half-Moon in a canoe, and had been received on board by the master, standing together in the chains, and looking forward to the rocks they were approaching with countenances of the most eager interest.

"Master Hendrick!" he vociferated, in the tone of a man who can contain his anger no longer; " will you look at these grinning red devils, who are rejoicing to see you run so blindly ashore!"

The adventurous little bark was by this time within a biscuit-toss of a rocky point that jutted forth into the river with the grace of a lady's foot dallying with the water in her bath; and, beyond, the sedgy bank disappeared in an apparent inlet, barely deep enough, it seemed to the irritated steersman, to shelter a canoe.

As the Half-Moon obeyed her last order, and headed a point more to the west, Hudson strode forward to the bow, and sprang upon the windlass, stretching his gaze eagerly into the bosom of the hills that were

now darkening with the heavy shadows of twilight, though the sky was still gorgeously purple overhead.

The crew had by this time gathered, with unconscious apprehension, at the halyards, ready to let go at the slightest gesture of the master; but, in the slow progress of the little bark, the minute or two which she took to advance beyond the point on which his eye was fixed, seemed an age of suspense.

The Half-Moon seemed now almost immoveable; for the current, which convinced Hudson there was a passage beyond, set her back from the point with increasing force, and the wind lulled a little with the sunset. Inch by inch, however, she crept on, till at last the silent skipper sprang from the windlass upon the bowsprit, and, running out with the agility of a boy, gave a single glance ahead, and the next moment had the tiller in his hand, and cried out, with a voice of thunder, "Stand by the halyards!-helm's-a-lee!"

In a moment, as if his words had been lightning, the blocks rattled, the heavy boom swung round like a willow-spray, and the white canvass, after fluttering an instant in the wind, filled, and drew steadily on the other tack.

Looks of satisfaction were exchanged between the crew, who expected the next instant an order to take in sail and drop anchor; but the master was at the helm, and, to their utter consternation, he kept her steadily to the wind, and drove straight on; while a gorge, that, in the increasing darkness, seemed the entrance to a cavern, opened its rocky sides as they advanced.

The apprehensions of the crew were half lost in their astonishment at the grandeur of the scene. The cliffs seemed to close up behind them; a mountain, that reached apparently to the now colourless clouds, rose up, gigantic in the increasing twilight, over the prow: on the right, where the water seemed to bend, a craggy precipice extended its threatening wall; and in the midst of this round bay, which seemed to them to be an inclosed lake in the bottom of an abyss, the wind suddenly took them aback, the Haloe-Mane lost her headway, and threatened to go on the rocks with the current, and audible curses at his folly reached the ears of the determined master.

More to divert their attention than with a prognostic of the direction of the wind, Hudson gave the order to tack; and, more slowly this time, but still with sufficient expedition, the movement was executed, and the flapping sails swung round. The halyards were not belayed, before the breeze, rushing down a steep valley on the left, struck full on the larboard quarter, and, running sharp past the face of the precipice, over the starboard bow, Hudson pointed out exultingly to his astonished men the broad waters of the mighty river, extending far through the gorge beyond-the dim purple of the lingering day, which had been long lost to the cavernous and overshadowed pass they had penetrated, tinting its fair bosom like the last faint hue of the expiring dolphin.

The exulting glow of triumph suffused the face of the skipper; and, relinquishing the tiller once more to the mortified Fleming, he walked forward to look out for an anchorage. The Indians, who still stood in the chains together, and who had continued to express their satisfaction as the vessel made her way through the pass, now pointed eagerly to a

little bay on the left, across which a canoe was shooting, like the reflection of a lance in the air; and, the wind dying momently away, Hudson gave the order to round-to, and dropped his anchor for the night.

In obedience to the politic orders of Hudson, the men were endeavouring, by presents and signs, to induce the Indians to leave the vessel; and the master himself stood on the poop with his mate, gazing back on the wonderful scene they had passed through.

"This passage," said Hudson, musingly, " has been rent open by an earthquake, and the rocks look as if they still felt the agony of the throe." "It is a pity the earthquake did its job so raggedly, then!" answered his sulky companion, who had not yet forgiven the mountains for the shame their zig-zag precipices had put upon his sagacity.

At that instant, a sound like that of a heavy body sliding into the water, struck the ear of Fleming, and looking quickly over the stern, he saw one of the Indians swim away from the vessel with a pillow in his hand, which he had evidently stolen from the cabin window. To seize a musket, which lay ready for attack on the quarter-deck, and fire upon the poor savage, were the sudden thought and action of a man on the watch for a vent to incensed feelings. The Indian gave a yell, which mingled wildly with the echoes of the report from the reverberating hills; and, springing waist-high out of the water, the gurgling eddy closed suddenly over his head.

The canoe in which the other savages were already embarked, shot away like an arrow to the shore, and Hudson, grieved and alarmed inexpressibly at the fool-hardy rashness of his mate, ordered all hands to arms, and established a double watch for the night.

Hour after hour, the master, and the now repentant Fleming, paced fore and aft, each in his own quarter of the vessel, watching the shore, and the dark face of the water with straining eyes; but no sound came from the low cliff, round which the flying canoe had vanished, and the stars seemed to wink almost audibly in the dread stillness of nature. The men, alarmed at the evident agitation of Hudson, who, in these pent-up waters, anticipated a most effective and speedy revenge from the surrounding tribes, drowsed not upon their watch; and the gray of the morning began to show faintly over the mountains, before the anxious master withdrew his aching eyes from the still and starry

waters.

Like a web woven of gold by the lightning, the sun's rays ran in swift threads from summit to summit of the dark green mountains; and the soft mist that slept on the breast of the river began to lift like the slumberous lid from the eye of woman when her dream is broken at dawn. Not so poetically were these daily glories regarded, however, by the morning watch of the Haloe-Mane, who, between the desire to drop asleep with their heads on the capstan, and the necessity of keeping sharper watch, lest the Indians should come off through the rising mist, bore the double pains of Tantalus and Sisyphus' ungratified desire at their lips, and threatening ruin over their heads.

After dividing the watch at the break of day, Hudson, with the relieved part of his crew, had gone below, and might have been asleep an hour, when Fleming suddenly entered the cabin, and laid his hand upon his shoulder. The skipper sprang from his berth with the ha

bitual readiness of a seaman, and followed his mate upon deck, where he found his men standing to their arms, and watching an object that, to his first glance, seemed like a canoe sailing down upon them through the air. The rash homicide drew close to Hendrick as he regarded it; and the chatter of his teeth betrayed that, during the long and anxious watches of the night, his conscience had not justified him for the hasty death he had awarded to a fellow-creature.

"She but looms through the mist," said the skipper, after regarding the advancing object for a moment. "It is a single canoe, and can scarce harm us. Let her alongside!"

The natural explanation of the phenomenon at once satisfied the crew, who had taken their superstitious fears rather from Flemings' evident alarm, than from their own want of reflection; but the guilty man himself still gazed on the advancing phantom, and, when a slight stir of the breeze raised the mist like the corner of a curtain, and dropped the canoe plain upon the surface of the river, he turned gloomily on his heel, and muttered, in an under-tone, to Hudson," It brings no good, skipper Hendrick !"

Meanwhile, the canoe advanced slowly. The single paddle which propelled her, paused before every turn; and, as the mist lifted quite up, and showed a long green line of shore between its shadowy fringe and the water, an Indian, highly painted, and more ornamented than any they had hitherto seen, appeared, gazing earnestly at the vessel, and evidently approaching with fear and caution.

The Half-Moon was heading up the river with the rising tide, and Hudson walked forward to the boom to look at the savage more closely. By the eagle and bear so richly embroidered in the gay-coloured quills of the porcupine on his belt of wampum, he presumed him to be a chief, and glancing his eye into the canoe, he saw the pillow which had occasioned the death of the plunderer the night before, and on it lay two ears of corn, and two broken arrows. Pausing a moment, as he drew near, the Indian pointed to these signs of peace, and Hudson, in reply, spread out his open hands, and beckoned to him to come on board. In an instant, the slight canoe shot under the starboard bow; and, with a noble confidence which the skipper remarked upon with admiration, the tall savage sprang upon the deck, and laid the hand of the commander to his breast.

The noon arrived, hot and sultry, and there was no likelihood of a wind till sunset. The chief had been feasted on board, and had shown in his delight the most unequivocal evidence of good feeling, and even Fleming at last, who had drank more freely than usual during the morning, abandoned his suspicions, and joined in amusing the superb savage who was their guest. In the course of the forenoon, another canoe came off, paddled by a single young woman, whom Fleming recognized as having accompanied the plunderers the night before, but, in his half-intoxicated state, it seemed to recall none of his previous bodings, and, to his own surprise and that of the crew, she evidently regarded him with particular favour, and by pertinacious and ingenious signs endeavoured to induce him to go ashore with her in her canoe. The particular character of her face and form would have given the

mate a clue to her probable motives, had he been less reckless from his excitement. She was taller than is common for females of the savage tribes, and her polished limbs, as gracefully moulded in their dark hues as those of the Mercury of the fountain, combined with their slightness a nerve and steadiness of action which portrayed strength and resolution of heart and frame. Her face was highly beautiful, but the voluptuous fulness of the lips was contradicted by a fierce fire in her night-dark eyes, and a quickness of the brow to descend, which told of angry passions habitually on the alert. It was remarked by Hans Christaern, one of the crew, that when Fleming left her for an instant, she abstracted herself from the other joyous groups, and, with folded arms and looks of brooding thoughtfulness, stood looking over the stern; but immediately on his re-appearance her snowy teeth became visible between her relaxing lips, and she resumed her patient gaze upon his countenance, and her occasional efforts to draw him into the canoe.

Quite regardless of the presence of the woman, the chief sat apart with Hudson, communicating his ideas by intelligent signs, and, after a while, the skipper called his mate, and informed him that, as far as he could understand, the chief wished to give them a feast on shore. "Arm yourselves well," said he," though I look for no treachery from this noble pagan, and if chance should put us in danger, we shall be more than a match for the whole tribe. Come with me, Fleming," he continued, after a pause, you are too rash with your fire-arms to be left in command. Man the watch, four of you, and the rest get into the long-boat. We'll wile away these sluggish hours, though danger is in it."

The men sprang gaily below for their arms, and were soon equipped and ready, and the chief, with an expression of delight, put off in his canoe, followed more slowly by the heavy long-boat, into which Hudson, having given particular orders to the watch to let no savages on board during his absence, was the last to embark. The woman, whom the chief had called to him before his departure by the name of Kikyalee, sped off in her swift canoe to another point of the shore, and when Fleming cried out from the bow of the boat, impatiently motioning her to follow, she smiled in a manner that sent a momentary shudder through the veins of the skipper, who chanced to observe the action, and by a circular movement of her arm, conveyed to him that she should meet him from the other side of the hill. As they followed the chief, they discovered the wigwams of an Indian village behind the rocky point for which she was making, and understood that the chief had sent her thither on some errand connected with his proposed hospitality.

A large square rock, which had the look of having been hurled with some avalanche from the mountain, lay in the curve of a small beach of sand, surrounded by the shallow water, and, on the left of this, the chief pointed out to the skipper a deeper channel, hollowed by the entrance of a mountain-torrent into the river, through which he might bring his boat to land. At the edge of this torrent's bed, the scene of the first act of hospitality to our race upon the Hudson, stands at this day the gate to the most hospitable mansion on the river, as if the spirit of the spot had consecrated it to its first association with the white man. The chief led the way, when the crew had disembarked, by a path