of a sailor than Stede Bonnet had been
when he first began his seafaring life, boldly made his way up the coast
to the mouth of Cape Fear River, where he had been told the pirate
vessel was lying. When he reached his destination, Mr. Rhett found that
it would not be an easy thing to ascend the river, for the reason that
the pilots he had brought with him knew nothing about the waters of that
part of the coast, and although the two ships made their way very
cautiously, it was not long after they had entered the river before they
got out of the channel, and it being low tide, both of them ran aground
upon sand bars.

This was a very annoying accident, but it was not disastrous, for the
sailing masters who commanded the sloops knew very well that when the
tide rose, their vessels would float again. But it prevented Mr. Rhett
from going on and making an immediate attack upon the pirate vessel, the
topmasts of which could be plainly seen behind a high headland some
distance up the river.

Of course Bonnet, or Captain Thomas, as he now chose to be called, soon
became aware of the fact that two good-sized vessels were lying aground
near the mouth of the river, and having a very natural curiosity to see
what sort of craft they were, he waited until nightfall and then sent
three armed boats to make observations. When these boats returned to the
_Royal James_ and reported that the grounded vessels were not
well-loaded trading craft, but large sloops full of men and armed with
cannon, Bonnet (for we prefer to call him by his old name) had good
reason to fold his arms, knit his brows, and strut up and down the deck.
He was sure that the armed vessels came from Charles Town, and there was
no reason to doubt that if the Governor of South Carolina had sent two
ships against him the matter was a very serious one. He was penned up in
the river, he had only one fighting vessel to contend against two, and
if he could not succeed in getting out to sea before he should be
attacked by the Charles Town ships, there would be but little chance of
his continuing in his present line of business. If the _Royal James_ had
been ready to sail, there is no doubt that Bonnet would have taken his
chance of finding the channel in the dark, and would have sailed away
that night without regard to the cannonading which might have been
directed against him from the two stranded vessels.

But as it was impossible to get ready to sail, Bonnet went to work w