Much Relieved In Mind, The Little Company
Continued Their Investigations, When, Farther On,
Almost In Their Very Pathway, There Rose A Noble
Tree, Pointing Its Top Heavenward, As Though To
Remind Them In Whose Care Their Lost Ones Had
Been.
Approaching this giant, who had stood
a silent sentinel through winter storms and
summer skies, they found he bore upon his body
a message for them.
Stripped of its bark, five
feet upward from the ground there appeared
upon the bare surface in bold lettering the word
so full of hope - Croatan; and now also, as in
the last case, without the graven cross. Cheered
by these signs, and believing that the lost
colonists had carried out their early intentions, and
were now located among the friendly tribe of
Croatans, wheresoever their country might be,
the boat's company decided to go at once to the
ships, and return the next day in search of the
lost colony.
One of the ships, in moving its position from
the unprotected anchorage-ground, parted its
cable and left an anchor on the bottom - the
second that had been lost. The wind drove the
ships towards the beach, when a third anchor
was lowered; but it held the little fleet so
close in to the breakers, that the sailors were
forced to slip their cable and work into a
channel-way, where, in deeper water, they held their
ground.
In debating the propriety of holding on and
attempting to wear out the gale, the scarcity of
their provisions, and the possession of but one
cask of water, and only one anchor for the fleet
to ride at, decided them to go southward in quest
of some favorable landing, where water could be
found.
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