“Ay, ay, sir.”
The hawser is a very thick, heavy line, used for towing or making a ship fast; and one end of this rope the sailors gladly threw over to the steamer, while the other was made fast to the capstan on the forecastle deck.
We arrived in the harbor about four o’clock that afternoon, and had just cast anchor when we were visited with a rough north-west gale. But we did not care now, we were safe.
We anchored near Hart’s Island, and I got on the little steamer, with Captain Collins, and went up to the city. We landed at the foot of Catharine street, and my glad heart never before bounded as it did when, after the perils of the past three weeks, I stepped upon terra firma once more. I felt that I wouldn’t care if somebody would knock a hole in the bottom of the nasty old sea and let all the salty water run out. It isn’t of any use, anyhow, only to raise sharks, and whales, and mermaids, and porpoises, and sea-horses, and sea-serpents, and such like hideous creatures, to float iron-clads and drown people; and for idiots that never saw it to write pretty verses about. I am not habitually a fighting man; on the contrary, quite a peaceably-disposed citizen of the United States; but if I ever come across the cuss that wrote,
“A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep;
Where the scattered waters rave,
And the winds their revels keep,”
I’ll lick him or he’ll lick me!