ut
these yelling gales that burst from the Highlands struck us like the
successive discharges of cannon, and the _Wind-Flower_ staggered and
heeled, reeling through the Tappan Zee as a great water-fowl, crippled
and stung to terror, drives blindly into the spindrift, while shot on
shot strikes, yet ends not the frantic struggle.

Once we were beaten back so far that, in the dark whirlwind of dawn, I
saw a fire-ball go whirring aloft and spatter the eastern horizon. Then,
through the shrilling of the tempest, a gun roared to starboard, and at
the flash a gun to port boomed, shaking our decks. We had beaten back
within range of the British lines, and the batteries on Cock Hill opened
on us, and a guard-ship to the west had joined in. Southeast a red glare
leaped, and died out as Fort Tryon fired a mortar, while the _Wind-Flower_,
bulwarks awash, heeled and heeled, staggering to the shelter of Tetard's
Hill. Southward we saw the beacons ablaze, marking the _chevaux de
frise_ below Fort Lee, and on the Jersey shore the patrol's torches
flashing along the fort road. But we had set a bit o' rag under Tetard's
Hill, and slowly we crept north again past Yonkers, struggling
desperately at Phillips, but making Boar's Hill and Dobbs Ferry by
mid-afternoon. And that night the wind shifted so suddenly that from
Tappan to Tarrytown was but a jack-snipe's twist, and we lay snug in
Haverstraw Bay, under the lee of the Heights of North Castle, scarce an
hour's canoe-paddle from the wharf where we had embarked four days
before.

And now delay followed delay, a gunboat holding us twenty-four hours at
Dobbs Ferry--why, I never knew--and, at the Chain, two days' delay were
required before they let us pass.

When at last we signaled West Point, at the close of one long, calm
August afternoon, through the flaming mountain sunset, the black
fortress beckoned us to anchor, nor had we any choice but to obey the
silent summons from those grim heights, looming like a thunder-cloud
against the cinders of the dying sun.

That night a barge put out, and an officer boarded us, subjecting us to
a most rigid scrutiny. Since the great treason a savage suspicion had
succeeded routine vigilance; the very guns among the rocks seemed
alive, alert, listening, black jaws parted to launch a thunderous
warning. A guard was placed on deck; we were not allowed to send a boat
ashore; not even permitted to communicate with the fishing-smack and
rowboats that ho