THE beach upon which they had been cast lay not more than thirty miles down the coast from Charles Town. Scarcely a mile away opened Edisto Inlet, and at Lachlan's suggestion they walked the strand until the calm blue waters of the inlet halted them. In an hour or so they saw a large plantation pettiauger coming down the river to the inlet mouth to fish. They signalled the boat and she came to them where they waited on the smooth sandy shore.
While the gaping negro oarsmen looked on in wondering silence, Falcon told the white man in charge—a plantation overseer—a story of how the Good Fortune had been wrecked in the blow of the night before. There were food and drink on the pettiauger and an hour's row up the inlet and the river behind it brought them to Mr. Paul Hamilton's plantation house. Hamilton received them hospitably, provided them with clothing, ordered his eight-oared cypress barge manned, and, holding the tiller himself, brought them through the winding, marsh-bordered inner waterways to Charles Town.
He set them ashore and, being busy with his crops, cast off at once for the return trip. Lachlan stood
