He was looking for some one. A sailor engaged in service passed near him. Stepping to his side, Mr. Belcher asked him to show him the captain. The man pointed to the bridge. "There's the Cap'n, sir--the man in the blue coat and brass buttons." Then he went along. Mr. Belcher immediately made his way to the bridge. He touched his hat to the gruff old officer, and begged his pardon for obtruding himself upon him, but he was in trouble, and wanted advice. "Very well, out with it: what's the matter?" said the Captain. Mr. Belcher drew out the little item he had saved, and said: "Captain, I have seen this bit of news for the first time since I started. This firm held all the money I have in the world. Is there any possible way for me to get back to my home?" "I don't know of any," said the captain. "But I must go back." "You'll have to swim for it, then." Mr. Belcher was just turning away in despair, with a thought of suicide in his mind, when the captain said: "There's Pilot-boat Number 10. She's coming round to get some papers. Perhaps I can get you aboard of her, but you are rather heavy for a jump." The wind was blowing briskly off shore, and the beautiful pilot-boat, with her wonderful spread of canvass, was cutting the water as a bird cleaves the air. She had been beating toward land, but, as she saw the steamer, she rounded to, gave way before the wind, worked toward the steamer's track on the windward side, and would soon run keel to keel with her. "Fetch your traps," said the captain. "I can get you on board, if you are in time." Mr. Belcher ran to his state-room, seized his valise, and was soon again on deck. The pilot-boat was within ten rods of the steamer, curving in gracefully toward the monster, and running like a race-horse. The Captain had a bundle of papers in his hand. He held them while Mr. Belcher went over the side of the vessel, down the ladder, and turned himself for his jump. There was peril in the venture, but desperation had strung his nerves. The captain shouted, and asked the bluff fellows on the little craft to do him the personal favor to take his passenger on shore, at their convenience. Then a sailor tossed them the valise, and the captain tossed them the papers. Close in came the little boat. It was almost under Mr. Belcher. "Jump!" shouted half a dozen voices together, and the heavy man lay sprawling upon the deck among the laughing crew. A shout and a clapping of hands was heard from the steamer, "Number 10" sheered off, and continued her cruise, and, stunned and bruised, the General crawled into the little cabin, where it took only ten minutes of the new motion to make him so sick that his hunger departed, and he was glad to lie where, during the week that he tossed about in the cruise for in-coming vessels, he would have been glad to die.