Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/408

 1G8 THE GRATER; low undertook to mystify a little concerning the Reef; but here he soon found himself met with plump denials. In order to convince him that deception would be of no use, he was now taken a short distance and confronted with Waally ! Bigelow no sooner saw the dark countenance of the chief than he knew he was in bad hands. From that mo ment, he abandoned all attempts at concealment, the con dition of the Peak excepted, and had recourse to an oppo site policy. He now exaggerated everything; the number and force of the vessels, giving a long list of names that were accurate enough, though the fact was concealed that they mostly belonged to boats; and swelling the force of the colony to something more than two thousand fighting men. The piratical commander, who went by the name of * the admiral among his followers, was a good deal startled by this information, appealing to Waally to know whether it might be relied on for truth. Waally could not say yes or no to this question. He had heard that the colo nists were much more numerous than they were formerly ; but how many fighting men they could now muster was more than he could say. He knew that they were enor mously rich, and among other articles of value, possessed materials sufficient for fitting out as many ships as they pleased. It was this last information that had brought the strangers to the group ; for they were greatly in want of naval stores of almost all sorts. The admiral did not deem it necessary to push his in quiries any further at that moment; apparently, he did not expect to find much at Rancocus Island, Waally having, most probably, let him into the secret of its uses. The houses and mills were visited and plundered ; a few hogs and one steer were shot; but luckily, most of the animals had been driven into a retired valley. The saw-mill was set on fire in pure wantonness, and it was burned to the ground. A new grist-mill escaped, merely because its position was not known. A great deal of injury was in flicted on the settlement merely for the love of mischief, and a brick-kiln was actually blown up in order to enjoy the fun of seeing the bricks scattered in the air. In short, the place was almost destroyed in one sense, though no