im with another
Province, but Myndert Van Beverout would not give him credit for the tail
of a marten; and so, again, Heaven preserve thee!"

The dealer in contraband appeared to tear himself from the sight of all
the little elegancies that adorned the apartment of la belle Barberie,
with reluctance. His adieus to the Alderman were rather cavalier, for he
still maintained a cold and abstracted air; but as the other scarcely
observed the forms of decorum, in his evident desire to get rid of his
guest, the latter was finally obliged to depart. He disappeared by the low
balcony, where he had entered.

When Myndert Van Beverout was alone, he shut the windows of the pavilion
of his niece, and retired to his own part of the dwelling. Here the
thrifty burgher first busied himself in making sundry calculations, with a
zeal that proved how much his mind was engrossed by the occupation. After
this preliminary step, he gave a short but secret conference to the
mariner of the India-shawl, during which there was much clinking of gold
pieces. But when the latter retired, the master of the villa first looked
to the trifling securities which were then, as now, observed in the
fastenings of an American country house; when he walked forth upon the
lawn, like one who felt the necessity of breathing the open air He cast
more than one inquiring glance at the windows of the room which was
occupied by Oloff Van Staats, where all was happily silent; at the equally
immovable brigantine in the Cove; and at the more distant and still
motionless hull of the cruiser of the crown. All around him was in the
quiet of midnight Even the boats, which he knew to be plying between the
land and the little vessel at anchor, were invisible; and he re-entered
his habitation, with the security one would be apt to feel, under similar
circumstances, in a region so little tenanted, and so little watched, as
that in which he lived.

Chapter XII.

"Come on, Nerissa; I have work in hand,
That you, yet, know not of,----"

Merchant of Venice.

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 initiated were in the smallest degree aware of
their existence. Oloff Van Staats was early afoot; and when he appeared on
the lawn, to scent the morning air, there was nothing visible, to give
rise to a suspicion that aught extra