iron chest, but it slid sideway into the ground as they tried to uncover
it, and at last an interruption occurred that caused them to stop work so
long that when they went to look for it again it had entirely
disappeared. This diversion was the appearance of a monster horse that
flew toward them from a distance without a sound, but stopped short at
the circle where the process of banning fiends was still going on, and,
after grazing and walking around them for a time, it dissolved into air.

Kidd's plug is a part of the craggy steep known as Cro' Nest, on the
Hudson. It is a projecting knob, like a bung closing an orifice, which is
believed to conceal a cavern where the redoubtable captain placed a few
barrels of his wealth. Though it is two hundred feet up the cliff,
inaccessible either from above or below, and weighs many tons, still, as
pirates and devils have always been friendly, it may be that the corking
of the cave was accomplished with supernatural help, and that if blasts
or prayers ever shake the stone from its place a shower of doubloons and
diamonds may come rattling after it.

The shore for several hundred feet around Dighton Rock, Massachusetts,
has been examined, for it was once believed that the inscriptions on it
were cut by Kidd to mark the place of burial for part of his hoard.

The Rock Hill estate, Medford, Massachusetts, was plagued by a spectre
that some thought to be that of a New Hampshire farmer who was robbed and
murdered there, but others say it is the shade of Kidd, for iron treasure
chests were found in the cellar that behaved like that on the Piscataqua
River, sinking out of sight whenever they were touched by shovels.

Misery Islands, near Salem, Massachusetts, were dug over, and under
spiritual guidance, too, for other instalments of Mr. Kidd's