ainbow_ had to
bring up till the following morning. A bright look-out was kept during
the night lest any Spaniard or other stranger might enter the harbour,
and, finding a solitary ship, venture to attack her. At dawn, anchor
was weighed, and the breeze being fair, Old Comfort Point was rounded,
and the _Rainbow_ steered northward up the broad Chesapeake. The lead
was kept going, for Captain Layton desired to keep as close to the shore
as prudence would permit; while Vaughan noted down each point and bay,
and the mouth of every stream and inlet they passed.
"Dost know the look of this coast, Ben?" asked Roger, as he saw Tarbox
gazing eagerly at the shore.
"Ay, marry do I, sir," answered the old sailor; "for we sailed up and
down it for many a league in the _Sally Rose_, and I thought when I came
to see it again I should not forget it."
"But you said the same when we sailed up James River," remarked Roger.
"And it is my belief that I once went up that also, with brave Sir
Richard Grenville in his pinnace; but I was somewhat mazed about the
matter, and when Nicholas Flowers, who had been with me in the _Sally
Rose_, said he knew the place, I thought I must know it too; but now I
come to see this coast, I find out that I was then wrong and am now
right," answered Ben.
"You hav'n't got Nicholas by your elbow now to prompt you, so keep a
sharp look-out, and be sure that you are right this time," said Roger.
"Ay, that I will, sir," answered Ben; "and every league we make good,
the more sure I am that I am right."
"I believe that honest Ben is not mistaken, and that we may have a
better hope of success than ever before," said Roger to Vaughan, when he
joined him on the poop. The ship continued running on all day; but the
wind was light, and her progress, consequently, slow. Towards evening
she brought up in a deep bay, in which Ben declared the _Sally Rose_ had
come to an anchor on her downward passage. The next morning she
continued her course, and had run on with a brisk breeze for some hours,
when Ben shouted out--"That's the bay, sir, where Dick Sponson and I,
when we had Batten with us, found the _Sally Rose_, after he had escaped
from the Indians; it is three days' pull, in a heavy boat with the wind
against us, to the northward of this, where we took Batten on board. I
should know the place again almost as well as I know Dartmouth harbour.
It was about six miles inland of that where our shipmates we
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