Sam
pulled over, therefore, under the lee of Manhattan Island, and,
coasting along, came to a snug nook, just under a steep, beetling
rock, where he fastened his skiff to the root of a tree that shot
out from a cleft, and spread its broad branches like a canopy over
the water. The gust came scouring along, the wind threw up the
river in white surges, the rain rattled among the leaves, the
thunder bellowed worse than that which is now bellowing, the
lightning seemed to lick up the surges of the stream; but Sam,
snugly sheltered under rock and tree, lay crouching in his skiff,
rocking upon the billows until he fell asleep.
[1] A long, narrow island in the East River, between New York and
Long Island City.
When he woke all was quiet. The gust had passed away, and only now
and then a faint gleam of lightning in the east showed which way it
had gone. The night was dark and moonless, and from the state of
the tide Sam concluded it was near midnight. He was on the point
of making loose his skiff to return homeward when he saw a light
gleaming along the water from a distance, which seemed rapidly
approaching.
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