The Water-Witch; Or, the Skimmer of the Seas: A Tale

The Manhattanese will readily comprehend the situation of the two vessels; but those of our countrymen who live in distant parts of the Union, may be glad to have the localities...

The succeeding day was one in which the weather had a fixed character. The wind was east, and, though light, not fluctuating. The air had that thick and hazy appearance, which p...

When Alderman Van Beverout and Ludlow drew near to the Lust in Rust, it was already dark. Night had overtaken them, at some distance from the place of landing; and the mountain...

Had Alderman Van Beverout been a party in the preceding dialogue, he could not have uttered words more apposite, than the exclamation with which he first saluted the ears of tho...

There was one curious though half-confounded observer of all that passed in and around the Cove, on the morning in question. This personage was no other than the slave called Bo...

The words of the immortal poet, with which, in deference to an ancient usage in the literature of the language, we have prefaced the incidents to be related in this chapter, are...

Three hours later, and every noise was hushed on board the royal cruiser. The toil of repairing damages had ceased, and most of the living, with the dead, lay alike in common si...

If the exterior of the brigantine was so graceful in form and so singular in arrangement, the interior was still more worthy of observation. There were two small cabins beneath...

Ludlow quitted the Lust in Rust with a wavering purpose. Throughout the whole of the preceding interview, he had jealously watched the eye and features of la belle Barbérie; and...

The commander of Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Coquette slept that night in the hammock-cloths. Before the sun had set, the light and swift brigantine, by following the gradual b...

From the moment when the Coquette fired her first gun, to the moment when the retiring boats became invisible, was just twenty minutes. Of this time, less than half had been occ...

The fine estuary which penetrates the American coast, between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, is formed by the confluence of the Hudson, the Hackensack, the Pa...

During the time past in the secret conference of the cabin, Ludlow and the Patroon were held in discourse on the quarter-deck, by the hero of the India-shawl. The dialogue was p...

The officer of the Queen had leaped into the pavilion, with the flushed features and all the hurry of an excited man. The exclamations and retreat of la belle Barbérie, for a si...

The time of the interview related in the close of the preceding chapter, was in the early watches of the night. It now becomes our duty to transport the reader to another, that...

“It is past!” said the ‘Skimmer of the Seas,’ raising himself from the attitude of great muscular exertion, which he had assumed in order to support the mess-chest, and walking...

On the following morning, the windows of the Lust in Rust denoted the presence of its owner. There was an air of melancholy, and yet of happiness, in the faces of many who were...

Day dawned on the Atlantic, with its pearly light, succeeded by the usual flushing of the skies, and the stately rising of the sun from out the water. The instant the vigilant o...

The cloud above the mouth of the Raritan had not risen. On the contrary, the breeze still came from off the sea; and the brigantine in the Cove, with the cruiser of the Queen, s...

The tide of existence floats downward, and with it go, in their greatest strength, all those affections that unite families and kindred. We learn to know our parents in the full...

Although it is contrary to the apparent evidence of our senses, there is no truth more certain than that the course of most gales of wind comes from the leeward. The effects of...

A happy mixture of land and water, seen by a bright moon, and beneath the sky of the fortieth degree of latitude, cannot fail to make a pleasing picture. Such was the landscape...

If we say that Alida de Barbérie did not cast a glance behind her, as the party quitted the wharf, in order to see whether the boat that contained the commander of the cruiser f...

It has been said that the periagua was in motion, before our two adventurers succeeded in stepping on board. The arrival of the Patroon of Kinderhook and of Alderman Van Beverou...

“The face of man is the log-book of his thoughts, and Captain Ludlow’s seems agreeable,” observed a voice, that came from one, who was not far from the commander of the Coquette...

Notwithstanding the active movements which had taken place in and around the buildings of the Lust in Rust, during the night which ended with our last chapter, none but the init...

The vessel, which appeared so inopportunely for the safety of the ill-manned British cruiser, was, in truth, a ship that had roved from among the islands of the Caribean sea, in...

“—Alack, what heinous sin is it in me To be ashamed, to be my father’s child! But though I am a daughter to his blood I am not to his manners.—”

It is not necessary to say, with how much interest Alderman Van Beverout, and his friend the Patroon, had witnessed all the proceedings on board the Coquette. Something very lik...

The first impulse of Alida, at this second invasion of her pavilion, was certainly to flee. But timidity was not her weakness, and as natural firmness gave her time to examine t...

The decision, with which la demoiselle Barbérie had dismissed her suitor, was owing to some consciousness that she had need of opportunity to reflect on the singular nature of t...

The philosophy of Alderman Van Beverout was not easily disturbed. Still there was a play of the nether muscles of the face, which might be construed into self-complacency at his...

The air, audacity, and language of the unknown mariner, had produced a marked sensation among the passengers of the periagua. It was plain, by the playfulness that lurked about...

Men are as much indebted to a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, for the characters they sustain in this world, as to their personal qualities. The same truth is applicabl...

Christendom is gradually extricating itself from the ignorance, ferocity, and crimes of the middle ages. It is no longer subject of boast, that the hand which wields the sword,...