It had been quite late in the afternoon when the boys had left the little cove at the foot of Brooklyn Heights, and now the light that filtered through the mist was growing dimmer. The ebb was still on, for the boat was drifting slowly. Another half-hour passed. "What is that?" exclaimed George, suddenly, for a lapping sound came to his ears; it was the noise of the little tide waves against the prow of a vessel at anchor--he had heard it often along the wharves. As he peered out with his face over the side he heard loud and distinct, almost above him, the rattle and click of a block and tackle. "'Vast 'eeaving there," called out a voice, so close that George started. "Belay, you lubbers," called the voice again. A strange odor filled the air, a smell compounded of so many things that it cannot be described. George knew it to be that of a crowded ship--the smell of a man-of-war. "I must be right among them," he murmured. All at once, so close to him that he could almost reach it with an oar, loomed a great black shape, and over his head extended the muzzles of a line of guns, and above them another, and still above, a third. "A seventy-four!" said George, crouching down in the bottom of the boat beneath the sail. Slowly he drifted past; he could see the white streaks on her sides, and hear snatches of songs and the hum of voices. At last he was directly beneath the bulging quarter galleries, and a voice called out, "What's that below?" "A boat, sir, adrift," some one answered, in gruff sailor tones. "Any one in her, Quartermaster?" inquired the first again. "Can't see, sir," was the reply. "Tumble into the cutter, then, and take after her," came the order. The shrilling of a boatswain's pipe followed, and the hoarse bawl, "All first cutters away," started George to action. "Now for another swim," he said, as he passed the battle-ship's mighty stern. "The shore of Staten Island must be off there to the left." He hove both coats into the water, and, taking Mr. Hewes's epistle in his teeth, lowered himself after them. He hated to sacrifice the spy-glass, but overboard it went with the rest. He had taken but a few dozen strokes when the thrumming of oars sounded plainly, and he rolled over on his back to listen--the oars stopped. "Cutter there!" came from the deck of the seventy-four. "Have you found that boat?" "Ay, ay, sir," the cutter hailed in return. "There's nothing in it but a hat." George smiled and struck out again. "That shore's a long ways off," he thought, after he had swum for some time steadily, and as he made this remark to himself his knee struck something hard; he dropped his feet to sound, and found that the water scarcely reached his waist. Tired and faint, he waded up to a shelving beach and fell forward in the sand. But he could not stay there long, for he knew that Staten Island was overrun with English soldiers. He must find some place to hide.