At that instant, I waved my hand, and gave a sharp order to the helmsman. The men jumped from their concealment under the bulwarks; up went the courses like a piece of magic, down went the helm, and ship and main yard swung together, as if both controlled by a single turn of the wheel. The _Pactolus_ came into the wind with a bird-like swoop, felt the main yard aback, checked her pace, and stopped dead in her tracks; there she lay, nodding sweetly to the slight swell, the last rays of the setting sun striking through her sails. A shout went up from the pilot boat. They fell off immediately, jibbed to the port tack, crossed our stern waving their hands, and dropped their skiff overboard. In a few moments the pilot nosed up under our lee quarter. "Good Lord, Captain!" he cried, as he came over the rail "What are you running here, a packet ship? I haven’t seen a trick like that turned since the days of the Black Ball Line" "I’m in a hurry to get in" I answered "and I don’t want to waste time over it. I have a double crew aboard to help me. This is Captain Potter, pilot, of the British steamship _Santiago_, burned at sea" Later that evening we took a towboat off the lightship, and clewed up our sails. I thought I’d be extravagant and have a second tug, since I saw another coming toward us; the wind had suddenly shifted into the northwest, dead ahead, and every one was anxious to get in. A hard enough tow it turned out, even with two boats ahead, for the wind soon settled down in earnest for an old-fashioned off-shore gale. I told our passengers to go to bed as usual; that all was safe now, and they would wake up next morning to find the ship at anchor. At three o’clock in the morning we came to off the Statue of Liberty, and dropped a hook into the bottom. They had passed us through quarantine under extraordinary dispensation, meanwhile sending word of the disaster and its happy outcome up the bay ahead of us. At daylight, the _Santiago’s_ company hurried their biggest tugboat alongside, stocked with emergency provision, if you please, for they expected us to be half starved. Captain Potter met the representative of his company at the rail; when they had talked for a while in private, I broke in on them. "Captain" said I "it would give us the greatest pleasure if you and your ship’s company would stay on board and have a last breakfast with us. Permit me to extend the invitation to this gentleman. Tell your tug to wait for you alongside until we’re through" "Thank you, sir—we’ll do it" he answered heartily "Mr. Folsom, this is my good friend Captain Clark. He has treated us to a reception aboard the _Pactolus_ unique in the annals of the Atlantic, as you’ll be able to see for yourself when you go below. I’ll promise you as good a breakfast as you would find ashore"