them that the brig was safe, and exceedingly fast, insurances never saving the lives of the people, whatever else might be their advantages. With Mulford it was an additional recommendation, that the Swash was usually thought to be of uncommonly just proportions. By half past two, P. M., every thing was ready for getting the brigantine under way. Her foretopsail—or fore_taw_sail, as Spike called it—was loose, the fasts were singled, and a spring had been carried to a post in the wharf that was well forward of the starboard bow, and the brig’s head turned to the southwest, or down stream, and consequently facing the young flood. Nothing seemed to connect the vessel with the land but a broad gangway plank, to which Mulford had attached life-lines, with more care than it is usual to meet with on board of vessels employed in short voyages. The men stood about the decks with their arms thrust into the bosoms of their shirts, and the whole picture was one of silent, and possibly of somewhat uneasy expectation. Nothing was said, however; Mulford walking the quarter-deck alone, occasionally looking up the still little tenanted streets of that quarter of the suburbs, as if to search for a carriage. As for the revenue-steamer, she had long before gone through the southern passage of Blackwell’s, steering for the Gate. “Dat’s dem, Mr. Mulford,” Josh at length cried, from the look-out he had taken in a stern-port, where he could see over the low bulwarks of the vessel. “Yes, dat’s dem, sir. I know dat old gray horse dat carries his head so low and sorrowful like, as a horse has a right to do dat has to drag a cab about dis big town. My eye! what a horse it is, sir!”