And now in October an unexpected ship appears on the broad bosom of the James. The London Company has hurriedly fitted out the _Mary & Margaret_, and sent Newport back to hasten Smith's discovery of the northward passage to the South Sea. As the ship approaches, the keen eyes of the crowd on shore discern something besides the red cross of St. George fluttering in the autumn breeze. What means this white pennon like a flag of truce? The amazed watchers rub their eyes and gaze again. "It looks like--but no, that cannot be--it certainly _looks_ like--yes, _it is_--an APRON!" Sure enough, on the forward deck a small slip of a maiden stands beside a matron in ruff and farthingale, and the little maid's apron signals a greeting to the shore. This is little fourteen-year-old Ann Burras. Her brother, "John Burras, Tradesman," is on board. She is going to be a famous woman very soon, young as she is. She is going to marry John Laydon, and hers will be the first marriage, and her little daughter will be the first English child born in Virginia, and the London Company will be proud of her and look to her dower; and so she and her John will found the genuine "first family" in Virginia. She is very unconscious of all this as she stands in her ruff and short petticoat, beside her mistress, Madame Forrest, who is brave in a farthingale, long, pointed bodice, lace ruff, and broad-banded hat. Her husband, "Thomas Forrest, Gentleman," is on board, but the "Gentleman" and his Madam signify very little beside the rosy English maiden who serves them. The news brought by Newport this time was too exciting to leave room for interest in Zuñiga's hysterics and the court happenings. Ratcliffe had written home by the last mail that Smith and his followers intended to seize the country and divide it among themselves. This the Right Honourables were ready and willing to believe, having been enlightened, doubtless, by the disgraced Wingfield. The orders were now explicit. There were to be no more evasions, no more apologies, no more subterfuge. The Virginia colonists were to discover and return one of the lost Roanoke men, to send back a lump of gold, and to find the South Sea--eastward or northward, or beyond the mountains. Moreover, the returning ship was to be freighted with goods, the sale of which would reimburse the company for its present outlay. Failing in obedience to these orders, the settlers must "consider themselves an abandoned colony," and "remain in Virginia as banished men." In order to facilitate the progress to the South Sea, the company had kindly sent out a barge in sections, to be borne on the men's backs across the intervening mountains, and to be pieced together when the river running into the South Sea should be reached.