But while the men on the _Merrimac_ watched the fruition of their day’s work, one of them, a pilot, saw “a strange-looking craft brought out in bold relief by the brilliant light of the burning ship, which he at once proclaimed to be the _Ericsson_.” The pilot was right. The _Monitor_ had arrived after a fearsome passage, during which the water had poured in through the hawse-pipe where the anchor chain led, and even down the smoke-stack, until the fires were all but extinguished. The belts on the fans got wet, so that it was not possible to keep up the draft, and the engineers and firemen were all but suffocated. The water dashed through the lookout slats of the pilot-house with such force as to knock the pilot over the wheel. The water gained in the hold until there was imminent danger of sinking. Nevertheless, it was an offshore wind, and the tug that went with her got her inshore, where the water was quiet, and at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, March 8th, she passed in at Cape Henry and headed north for Hampton Roads. She was commanded by Capt. J. L. Worden, with Lieut. S. D. Greene as executive officer, and A. C. Stivers and Isaac Newton as chief and first assistant engineers. The roar of the guns of the _Merrimac_ as she fired hot shot into the _Congress_ twenty miles away, fell upon the ears of the _Monitor’s_ crew, and the ship was at once cleared for action. After a little they “could see the fine old _Congress_ burning brightly, and soon a pilot came on board to tell the direful news.” The _Monitor_ was then driven at full speed to the _Roanoke_, where Flag Officer Marston directed her to go to the assistance of the _Minnesota_, then aground not far from the scene of the day’s conflict. In doing this Marston disobeyed orders he had received from Washington to the effect that the _Monitor_ was to be sent there, presumably to protect the capital; and this is to be remembered because it shows that the authorities at Washington were as loath to trust in aggressive warfare in 1862 as they were in 1812 when they ordered Hull to keep the _Constitution_ in Boston harbor. [Illustration: J. L. Worden. _From a photograph._] Steaming over to where the _Minnesota_ lay, the _Monitor_ came to anchor, an officer reported on board the big frigate, “and then all on board [the _Minnesota_] felt that we had a friend that would stand by us in our hour of trial.” So wrote Captain Van Brunt of the _Minnesota_.