Fortune again favored him, for, although he knew very little of that coast, and nothing of these particular shoals and channels, he found the opening of the South Inlet of Georgetown Bay and sailed his ship into that sheltered roadstead. The English vessels, working against the north wind, soon were lost to sight. On the afternoon of June 13, 1777, Lafayette’s little sloop ran past the inlet and up to North Island, one of the low sand-pits that are a fringe along the indented shore of South Carolina. The long sea-voyage was over, and Lafayette looked at last at the coast of the country he had come to help. IV THE YOUNG FRENCHMAN REACHES AMERICA The _Victory_ had anchored off North Island, a stretch of sand on the South Carolina coast, but neither the captain nor the owner nor the crew of the sloop knew much more about their location than that it was somewhere in North America. Charlestown they believed was the nearest port of any size, but it might be difficult to navigate through these shoal waters without a pilot who knew the channels. So Lafayette suggested to Baron de Kalb that they should land in one of the sloop’s boats and see if they could get information or assistance. Early in the afternoon Lafayette, De Kalb, and a few of the other officers were rowed ashore in the _Victory’s_ yawl. But the shore was merely a sand-flat, with no sign of human habitation. They put out again and rowed farther up the bay, keeping a sharp lookout for any house or farm. They found plenty of little creeks and islands, but the shores were simply waste stretches of sand and scrub-bushes and woods. The mainland appeared as deserted as though it had been a desert island far out in the sea. All afternoon they rowed about, poking the yawl’s nose first into one creek and then into another, and nightfall found them still exploring the North Inlet. Then, when they had about decided that it was too dark to row further and that they had better return to the sloop, they suddenly saw a lighted torch on the shore. Heading for this they found some negroes dragging for oysters. Baron de Kalb, who knew more English than the others, called out and asked if there was good anchorage for a ship thereabouts and whether he could find a pilot to take them to Charlestown. The negroes, very much surprised at the sudden appearance of the yawl, thought the men on board might be Englishmen or Hessians, and instantly grew suspicious. One of them answered, “We belong to Major Huger, all of us belongs to him. He’s our master.” “Is he an officer in the American army?” De Kalb called back. The negro said that he was, and added that there was a pilot on the upper end of North Island, and then volunteered to show the men in the yawl where the pilot lived and also to take them to the house of the Major.