How impossible for any one to understand his feelings then, except perhaps the comrades who had survived the same ordeal! The vessel glided on.

A fresh cool spring breeze with a scent of land fanned Lane's hot brow.

It bore tidings from home.

Almost he thought he smelled the blossoms in the orchard, and the damp newly plowed earth, and the smoke from the wood fire his mother used to bake over.
A hundred clamoring thoughts strove for dominance over his mind--to enter and flash by and fade.

His sight, however, except for the blur that returned again and again, held fast to the entrancing and thrilling scene--the broad glimmering sun-track of gold in the rippling channel, leading his eye to the grand bulk of America's symbol of freedom, and to the stately expanse of the Hudson River, dotted by moving ferry-boats and tugs, and to the magnificent broken sky-line of New York City, with its huge dark structures looming and its thousands of windows reflecting the fire of the sun.
It was indeed a profound and stirring moment for Daren Lane, but not quite full, not all-satisfying.