but these simple symbols possessed a world of meaning. Three years
before, when the sad farewells were being spoken, and the ships were
ready to set sail for England, this feeble band, left to struggle in the
wilds of the new land with sad forebodings of their possible fate, had
agreed upon a signal, and had promised Admiral White that if driven to
starvation upon the island, they would plant their colony fifty miles
inland, near a tribe of friendly Indians. Indeed, before the ships
sailed for England, they were making preparations for this move. Admiral
White requested them to carve upon a tree the name of the locality to
which they should remove, and if distress had overtaken them they were
to add a _cross_ over the lettering. Anxiously gathering round this
interesting relic of the lost Englishmen, the rude chirography was
eagerly scanned, but no vestige of a cross was found.

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 o