"There aint a sea-going vessel in the Yankee navy that can run on six foot of water, and I know it," chuckled Beardsley. "If one of 'em gets after us we'll skim through easy as falling off a log, but she'll stick, 'specially if she runs 'cording to them buoys you set out." This was the "work" to which the captain referred. At that time the rule was for all ship-masters to leave black buoys to starboard and the red ones to port; or, to put it in English, they were to pass to the left of the black buoys, and to the right of red ones, or run the risk of getting aground and losing their insurance, in case their ships went to pieces. But Marcy, acting under the orders of Captain Beardsley (who, now that he was fairly afloat, began to show that he was much more of a sailor than the folks around home thought he was), had changed this order of things by anchoring the red buoys on the right of the channel going out, and the black ones on the left. Of course it was necessary for the pilot to bear this in mind if he were called upon to take the privateer through there in a hurry, or on a dark night when the wind was blowing strongly. To a landsman this may seem like a very small thing, but it was enough to insure the destruction of any vessel whose commander was so daring as to try to follow in Captain Beardsley's lead. More than that, Crooked Inlet was not marked upon any government chart. The Atlantic Ocean had opened it since the last survey was made. All things being in readiness for the cruise, the _Osprey_ ran through the inlet on the morning of the third day out from Newbern, and spread her wings to swoop down upon the first unsuspecting merchantman which happened to be holding along the coast inside of Diamond Shoals. Now the crosstrees were manned for the first time, a small pull taken at the sheets fore and aft, and with a fine breeze over her quarter the schooner ran off to the southeast toward the fair-weather highway leading from the West Indies to Northern ports. Then the young pilot, who had given up his place at the wheel, had leisure to look about him and make a mental estimate of the crew. If there was a native American among them he could not find him. He guessed right when he told himself that they must have belonged to foreign vessels in port when President Lincoln's proclamation was issued, and that Beardsley's agent had induced them to join the Confederacy by offering higher wages than they were receiving, and making extravagant promises of a wild, free, easy life aboard the privateer, and unlimited dollars to spend in the way of prize money. But as far as Marcy could see they were good sailors, and Captain Beardsley and his mates enforced discipline from the first.