The next place where Jack wanted to show his captured flag was in Croatan Sound. The Confederate force which had been mustered to defend these waters, having been compelled to abandon, one after the other, all the forts they had erected to defend the various inlets leading to the open sea, were concentrating on Roanoke Island, which they were preparing to hold at all risks. They were building forts, fitting out gunboats, and sinking obstructions in the channels. Everything was well under way when the boys went through, their captured banner serving as a passport here as it had done at Plymouth. They took the deepest interest in all they saw, little dreaming that the day would come when the big guns, which now offered no objection to their progress, would pour a hot fire of shot and shell upon both of them. Sailor Jack would have been delighted if some one in whom he had perfect confidence had assured him that such would be the case, but Marcy would have been overwhelmed with astonishment. "This island is already historic," said Jack, as the little schooner dashed by the unfinished walls of Fort Bartow, and he waved his hat in response to a similar salute from one of the working party on shore, "and it'll not be many weeks before it will be more so." "What has ever happened here to give this lonely island a place in history?" inquired Marcy. "I am surprised at you," answered Jack. "Here you are, a North Carolina boy born and bred, and you don't know the history of your own State. Well, I didn't know it, either, until I happened to pick up an old magazine, thousands of miles from home, and read something about it--not because I cared a snap for history, which is awful dry stuff to me, but because I had nothing else to do just then. 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. They were the forerunners of the English-speaking millions now on this side of the big pond. Here, on the 18th of August, 1587, Virginia Dare, the first white American, was born. The county of which this island forms a part was named after her family. Now tell Julius to bring up some supper, and while we are eating it we'll take a slant over toward the main shore. There may be some sailor men among those soldiers for all we know, and, if they are watching our movements, we want to make them believe that we are holding a course for the lower end of the Sound, and that we have no intention of going near any of the inlets."