Days pass on in watching, and as yet no foreign sail. We study the line of our western horizon, and find it well filled in with forts, embrazures, earthworks, black-nosed dogs of war, and busy traitors. As time goes on, a new thing opens to the view: a short week ago it seemed but a molehill: now it has risen to the height of a man, and hourly increases in size. Two weeks, and now its summit is far above the reach of spade or shovel throw, and crowned by a platform firmly knit and held together by well-spliced timbers. As to its object we are somewhat dubious, but think it the beginning of an earthwork fortress, built high in order that guns may be depressed and brought to bear on the turrets of any Monitors which might possibly come down upon this place or Wilmington. At night we draw nearer to the shore, watching narrowly for blockade runners, which evade us occasionally, but oftener scud away disappointed. One night or early morning, 3 A. M. by the clock, we tried to heave up anchor; the pin slipped from the shackles, and the anchor, with forty fathoms of chain attached, slipped and sank to the bottom in some eight fathoms of water. The next day we steamed into our moorings of the previous night and sought to drag for it. While arranging to do so, we saw a puff of smoke from the shore. Bang! and a massive cannon ball tore whizzing over our heads. The shore batteries had us in their range, and the firing from the far-reaching Whitworth guns grows more rapid. Puff after puff rolls up from the long line of battery-covered hillocks, under the bastard flag, and the rolling thunder peals on our ears with the whizzing of death-threatening balls. Oh! the excitement of watching and wondering where the next ball will strike, and whether it will crush a hole right through us, wasting rich human life, and scattering our decks with torn-off limbs and running pools of blood. Quickly as possible we up anchor and away, and soon are out of reach of balls, which splash the water not a ship's length from us. Even then we involuntarily dodge behind some pine board or other equally serviceable screen; and a newspaper, if that were nearest, would be used for the same purpose--so say those who have tasted many a naval fight. In fact, the dodge is as often after the ball has hit as before, as this story of one of our brave quartermasters will prove: Under fire from rebel batteries, he noted the cloud of smoke which burst from one of the fort's embrazures--watched sharply for the ball--heard the distant roar and its cutting whiz overhead--watched still further, saw it fall into the sea beyond, and then sang out to the captain, 'There it fell, sir!' and like lightning dodged behind a mast, as though the necessity had but just occurred to him.