nside the sandy bars which inclose the coast
of North Carolina and protect it from the fury of the Atlantic storms.
Aided by the strong ebb tide and the favorable breeze that was blowing,
the privateer made a quick passage along the low, swampy shores of
Albemarle, and finally entered Croatan Sound, which runs between the
eastern coast and Roanoke Island, and connects Pamlico with Albemarle
Sound. The forts, water-batteries, and Commodore Lynch's fleet, which
were afterward destroyed by Burnside and Goldsborough, were not in
existence now. Forts Hatteras and Clark were being built at Hatteras
Inlet, but the Confederates wasted time in their construction, for on
the 28th day of August Butler and Stringham captured them without the
loss of a man, and in defiance of a storm which twice compelled the
assaulting fleet to put to sea for safety. How Marcy Gray's heart would
have throbbed with exultation if he had known that the flag his
Barrington girl gave him was destined to float in triumph over the very
waters through which he was now sailing, and at the masthead of a
Federal vessel of war! That glorious day was only seven months in the
future, but the young pilot had some tight places to sail through before
it came around to him.

Marcy Gray had so little heart for the business in which he was perforce
engaged, that he hoped something might happen at Newbern to prevent the
schooner from sailing on her piratical mission--that the collector of
the port might find some fault with her papers; that the howitzers and
small arms might not be forthcoming; that it might be impossible to
raise a crew; or that anything, no matter what, would come at the last
moment to knock Beardsley's scheme in the head. But he was disappointed.
The collector could not find any fault with the vessel's commission, for
he himself had received it direct from the Confederate capital and
forwarded it to the captain; the agent had scarcely slept since he
received that dispatch from Nashville, and the result was that when the
schooner sailed up to her wharf, she found the howitzers, four cases of
muskets and sabers, and a crew of eighteen men, including two mates,
waiting for her. The patriotic agent unfurled a brand-new Confederate
banner as the schooner threw out a line by which her head could be drawn
into the pier, and jumped aboard with it the moment she touched.

"May it be the means of bringing you many an honest dollar," said he, as
he spread the