If I were to make any attempt at setting down all we said in the cuddy of the sloop when we lay at anchor after our work as ferrymen, while trying to figure out how it might be possible for us to do something in aid of the Cause, I might never come to an end of my story, for our tongues wagged fast and long in discussion, and we proposed many plans which would have been so impossible of execution that he who might read would set us down as a party of simples needing a lesson in sound commonsense. The result of so many words was that we arrived at no conclusion whatsoever, and when night came all hands turned in, for we were sadly in need of sleep, wondering with sore hearts as to what would be the fate of our parents on Long Island now that the Britishers had undisputed possession. Although we were much the same as mustered out of service, it was not to be that we should enjoy a full night’s sleep. It was to me as if I had been lost in slumber no more than half an hour when I was brought out of the bunk all standing by the roar of heavy guns, as, quite naturally, were my companions. Without being exactly aware of how we came there, all hands of us found ourselves standing in the cockpit staring stupidly around until the night breeze had blown the slumber from our eyes, when it seemed very much as if the Britishers were determined to capture New York before our people had had time to recover from the fatigue of the hasty retreat. The night was not so dark but that we could make out quite distinctly a forty-gun ship coming up past the batteries on Bowling Green, her port guns sending forth flashes of flame as she threw shot into the city, and all the while every cannon on our side that could be brought to bear on her, was being discharged as rapidly as the gunners could reload it. The din was deafening, and for a time I believed we had before us a battle far more important than the one just fought on Long Island, for then we heard the roar of the cannon from a great distance, whereas here it was under our very noses, and more than once did a heavy shot fall so near the sloop that we were drenched by the spray which spouted up in torrents as the missile plunged hissing in the water. “The fleet is comin’ up to lay the town in ashes!” Sam cried with a sob, and verily every man jack of us was of the same opinion, for what other explanation could be made? The enormous ship came steadily on up the East river, apparently no more disturbed by our fire than one of us would have been by a swarm of mosquitoes, and as she approached, looking as though heading directly for us, I made a simple of myself by giving words to the thought which came suddenly into my mind: “She is after us! That must be the same vessel from which we escaped, an’ her captain is minded to show us what it costs to give a king’s vessel the slip!”