“It’ll take more’n a musket ball to stop this ’ere craft,” Abel Grant said laughing, and verily I believe the possibility of danger only served to raise his spirits. It was low tide when we crossed the river, running the course from the outermost end of Governor’s Island to the battery on Bowling Green as straight as might be, and then it was possible for us to see the long spikes driven in the booms of logs, making a regular set of porcupine quills, which were anchored just below the surface to prevent the enemy from getting up to the city on that side. We did not give much heed to them at the time, for our desires outran even the speed of the sloop, and at risk of staving the bow in, Abel Grant run her up to the bulkhead in front of the battery, I leaping ashore at the very moment she struck. Arrived at headquarters, breathless and excited, boiling with the hope that I was the first to bring the news, it was as if no sentry had been placed there, for I failed to hear the man challenge me when I darted past to enter the building, but before he could overtake me, for he did not dare to shoot, I had forced open the outer door, and an instant later stood in front of General Putnam. He was busily engaged with three other officers; but instead of losing his temper because of my unceremonious entrance, asked hurriedly as he leaped to his feet: “Has the enemy begun to make a landing?” “Ay, sir, and in Gravesend bay. We waited long enough to see three ships and two bomb-boats coming to anchor just off the shore, an’ no less than twenty flatboats filled with soldiers had left their moorings, bein’ towed across. The other scows were takin’ the men as fast as possible.” “How long since this was begun?” “We saw the first movement at daybreak; but waited until the ships had come to anchor in the bay before leavin’.” “How does it happen that you have been able to get here so quickly?” the general asked, much as if misdoubting the correctness of my report. Hurriedly I explained why we were enabled to get aboard the sloop so quickly, and as for the possibilities of our making the trip in quick time, he could see for himself by glancing out at the trees which were bending under the weight of the fresh breeze. “You have done well, my lad. Where is your sloop now?” “Just here at the battery bulkhead, sir, an’ all our company are aboard.” “Hold her there until you get further orders from Lieutenant Winterbottom. How many men will she carry?” “Thirty, perhaps, if you stow them snugly, and are not afraid of overloadin’.” The general turned his back on me to speak with the officers at the table, and I waited, not knowing whether the interview was at an end, mayhap four or five minutes, when in the midst of giving hurried orders to the aides who came pouring in as if well aware of what news I brought, he chanced to see me again, when he said in a friendly tone; but speaking so rapidly as to show he had no time to waste: