Then he turned his eyes to the inner bay, where he saw the usual amount of shipping, sloops, schooners, brigs and every other kind of vessel known to the times. Behind them rose the high wooded shores of Staten Island, and through the channel between it and Long Island Robert saw other ships coming in. Truly, it was a noble bay, apparently made for the creation of a great port, and already busy man was putting it to its appointed use. Then he looked up the Hudson at the lofty Palisades, the precipitous shores facing them, and his eyes came back to the stream. Several vessels under full sail were steering for the mouth of the Hudson, but he looked longest at a schooner, painted a dark color, and very trim in her lines. He saw two men standing on her decks, and two or three others visible in her rigging. Evidently she was a neat and speedy craft, but he was not there to waste his time looking at schooners. The letter of Colonel William Johnson to Master Nicholas Suydam in Paulus Hook must be delivered, and, taking up his oars, he rowed vigorously toward the hamlet on the Jersey shore. When he was about two-thirds of the way across he paused to look back again, but the air was so heavy with wintry mists that New York did not show at all. He was about to resume the oars once more when the sound of creaking cordage caused him to look northward. Then he shouted in alarm. The dark schooner was bearing down directly upon him, and was coming very swiftly. A man on the deck whom he took to be the captain shouted at him, but when Robert, pulling hard, shot his boat ahead, it seemed to him that the schooner changed her course also. It was the last impression he had of the incident, as the prow of the schooner struck his boat and clove it in twain. He jumped instinctively, but his head received a glancing blow, and he did not remember anything more until he awoke in a very dark and close place. His head ached abominably, and when he strove to raise a hand to it he found that he could not do so. He thought at first that it was due to weakness, a sort of temporary paralysis, coming from the blow that he dimly remembered, but he realized presently that his hands were bound, tied tightly to his sides.