Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/81

Rh for a voyage of some thousands of miles our chance of safely reaching our destination was exceedingly problematical. Indeed, looking back upon the probabilities of the case, it seems to me it must have ended in disaster, had not Fortune at last played us a good turn, as welcome as it was unexpected.

It was the fourth morning after our arrival at New Orleans, when as we were cleaning decks we heard the sound of a signal gun at no great distance. Climbing to a look-out station I had established near our anchorage we were surprised to see a man-of-war of the corvette class steaming slowly up the river with the old Stars and Stripes flying at her main, and the signal for a pilot at the fore. If we did not stop them her crew would rush into the jaws of destruction. Calling to me a pilot and four men we hastily put out into the river to meet her. When we got out on board she proved to be the U.S. sloop of war "Roanoke," which has been commissioned two years before for an exploring cruise in the South Pacific. Her Commander had died on the homeward voyage, and she was now in charge of Lieut. Winthrop E. Danvers, a native (as it happened) of New Orleans.