The whale-boats start out, David Bushnell in one of them. They mean to take the Turtle in tow the minute it is safe to do so and save Ezra Lee the labor of rowing it until the last minute.
It is eleven o'clock. All silently they dip the oars, and hear the sentinels cry from camp and shore.
Past the island, in safety, at last. They look for the Turtle. Up it comes, a distant watch-light gleaming across its brass head disclosing its presence. Once more it is in tow, and Lee is in the whale-boat.
Down the bay they go, until the lights from the fleet grow dangerously near.
On the wide, wind-stirred waters of New York Bay, Ezra Lee gets into the Turtle, and is cast off, and left alone, for the whale-boats return to New York.
With the rudder in his hand, and his _feet_ upon the oars, he pursues his way. The strong ebb tide flows fast, and, before he is aware of it, it has drifted him down past the men-of-war.
However, he immediately _gets the machine about_, and, "by hard labor at the crank for the space of five glasses by the ships' bells, or two and a half hours, he arrives under the stern of one of the ships at about slack water."
Day is now beginning to dawn. He can see the people on board, and hear them talk.
The moment has come for diving. He closes up quickly overhead, lets in the water, and goes down under the ship's bottom.
He now applies the screw and does all in his power to make it enter, but in vain; it will not pierce the ship's copper. Undaunted, he paddles along to a different part, hoping to find a softer place; but, in doing this, in his hurry and excitement, he manages the mechanism so that the Turtle instantly arises to the surface on the east side of the ship, and is at once exposed to the piercing light of day.
Again he goes under, hoping that he has not been seen.
This time his courage fails. It is getting to be day. If the ship's boats are sent after him his escape will be very difficult, well-nigh impossible, and, if he saves himself at all, it must be by rowing more than four miles.
He gives up the enterprise with reluctance, and starts for New York.
Governor's Island _must_ be passed by. He draws near to it, as near as he can venture, and then submerges the Turtle. Alas! something has befallen the compass. It will not guide the rowing under the sea.