“Fetch your traps,” said the captain.  “I can get you on board, if you are in time.”

Mr. Belcher ran to his state-room, seized his valise, and was soon again on deck.  The pilot-boat was within ten rods of the steamer, curving in gracefully toward the monster, and running like a race-horse.  The Captain had a bundle of papers in his hand.  He held them while Mr. Belcher went over the side of the vessel, down the ladder, and turned himself for his jump.  There was peril in the venture, but desperation had strung his nerves.  The captain shouted, and asked the bluff fellows on the little craft to do him the personal favor to take his passenger on shore, at their convenience.  Then a sailor tossed them the valise, and the captain tossed them the papers.  Close in came the little boat.  It was almost under Mr. Belcher.  “Jump!” shouted half a dozen voices together, and the heavy man lay sprawling upon the deck among the laughing crew.  A shout and a clapping of hands was heard from the steamer, “Number 10” sheered off, and continued her cruise, and, stunned and bruised, the General crawled into the little cabin, where it took only ten minutes of the new motion to make him so sick that his hunger departed, and he was glad to lie where, during the week that he tossed about in the cruise for in-coming vessels, he would have been glad to die.

One, two, three, four steamers were supplied with pilots, and an opportunity was given him on each occasion to go into port, but he would wait.  He had told the story of his bankers, given a fictitious name to himself, and managed to win the good will of the simple men around him.  His bottle of brandy and his box of cigars were at their service, and his dress was that of a gentleman.  His natural drollery took on a very amusing form during his sickness, and the men found him a source of pleasure rather than an incumbrance.

At length the last pilot was disposed of, and “Number 10” made for home; and on a dark midnight she ran in among the shipping above the Battery, on the North River, and was still.

Mr. Belcher was not without ready money.  He was in the habit of carrying a considerable sum, and, before leaving Talbot, he had drained that gentleman’s purse.  He gave a handsome fee to the men, and, taking his satchel in his hand, went on shore.  He was weak and wretched with long seasickness and loss of sleep, and staggered as he walked along the wharf like a drunken man.  He tried to get one of the men to go with him, and carry his burden, but each wanted the time with his family, and declined to serve him at any price.  So he followed up the line of shipping for a few blocks, went by the dens where drunken sailors and river-thieves were carousing, and then turned up Fulton Street toward Broadway.  He knew that the city cars ran all night, but he did not dare to enter one of them.  Reaching the Astor, he crossed over, and, seeing an up-town car starting off without a passenger, he stepped upon the front platform, where he deposited his satchel, and sat down upon it.  People came into the car and stepped off, but they could not see him.  He was oppressed with drowsiness, yet he was painfully wide awake.