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"Did he really mean it for me, after all my bad treatment of him?" said Frank. "Bless his old heart!" With his naked eye for the general view, and the glass to bring out the details, Frank enjoyed a rare spectacle that day. Roanoke Island and its surroundings lay outspread before him like a map. On the west of it was Croatan Sound, separating it from the marshes and forests of the main land.

Mace spent a month lounging about the Hatorask coast and trading with the natives, but did not land on Croatan, or at any place where the lost colony might be expected to be found; but having taken on board some sassafras, which at that time brought a good price in England, and some other barks which were supposed to be valuable, he basely shirked the errand on which he was hired to go, and took himself and his spicy woods home.

The "Lost Colony" of White is one of the romances of the New World. Governor White no doubt had the feelings of a parent, but he did not allow them to interfere with his more public duties to go in search of Spanish prizes. If the lost colony had gone to Croatan, it was probable that Ananias Dare and his wife, the Governor's daughter, and the little Virginia Dare, were with them.

Mace spent a month lounging about the Hatorask coast and trading with the natives, but did not land on Croatan, or at any place where the lost colony might be expected to be found; but having taken on board some sassafras, which at that time brought a good price in England, and some other barks which were supposed to be valuable, he basely shirked the errand on which he was hired to go, and took himself and his spicy woods home.

White was again sent out, with three ships, from Plymouth, and reached the coast in August. Sailing by Croatan they went to Hatorask, where they descried a smoke in the place they had left the colony in 1587. Going ashore next day, they found no man, nor sign that any had been there lately. Preparing to go to Roanoke next day, a boat was upset and Captain Spicer and six of the crew were drowned.

When he finally arrived at Roanoke Island, there were no signs of any of his people to be found, except that on the tree was cut the word "Croatan," which is the name of an Indian village on the island nearby. That was the last ever heard of all those hundred and sixteen people.

"Can't you think of a single man hereabouts who knows the channel through Croatan Sound?" "Not about here, I can't," answered the black boy, "an' I tell you dat fur de truth. Dey is all on de Island waitin' for you uns to come wha' dey is; but dey's two back in de country a piece." "How far back in the country, and who are they?"

He 's mos' lackly one er dem bright mulatters, f'om Robeson County some of 'em call deyse'ves Croatan Injins w'at's been conscripted an' sent ter wu'k on de fo'tifications down at Wimbleton er some'er's er nuther, an' done 'scaped, and got mos' killed gittin' erway, an' wuz n' none too well fed befo', an' nigh 'bout starved ter def sence.

"What worries me just now is the fear that Beardsley will in some way find out that you Yankees have taken me from my mother's house to help your vessels through Croatan Sound, said Marcy, who little dreamed that Captain Beardsley had been taken from his own bed for the same purpose, and was at that very moment a prisoner in one of the boats that followed astern.

Of course you know that many of the Croatan Indians, who have gray eyes and speak the English language of three hundred years ago, claim to be descendants of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony, don't you? Well, that colony was planted here in 1585 on the shores of Shallow Bag Bay, which lies on the seaward side, and a little to the northeast of the fort we just passed.