The governor called together his council repeatedly
to assist him with their conjectures. He sat in his chair of state,
built of timber from the sacred forest of the Hague, and smoking his
long jasmine pipe, and listened to all that his counsellors had to say
on a subject about which they knew nothing; but, in spite of all the
conjecturing of the sagest and oldest heads, the governor still
continued to doubt.
Messengers were despatched to different places on the river; but they
returned without any tidings--the ship had made no port. Day after
day, and 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 Palisadoes; 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 they 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
glimpses of her careering across Tappaan Zee, or the wide waste of
Haverstraw Bay.
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