As the light grew, I scanned the shore to see whether I could detect the entrance of the hidden creek; but, though I swept it up and down again and again, it continued to justify the “King’s” boast.  There was no sign of an opening anywhere.  Nothing but a straight line of brush, with mangroves here and there stepping down in their fantastic way into the water.  And yet we were but a hundred yards from the shore.  Certainly “Blackbeard”—­if the haunt had really been his—­had known his business; for an enemy could have sought him all day along this coast and found no clue to his hiding-place.

But, presently, as my eyes kept on seeking, a figure rose, tall and black near the water’s edge, a little to our left, and shot up a long arm by way of signal.  It was Samson; and evidently the mouth of the creek was right there in front of us—­under our very noses, so to say—­and yet it was impossible to make it out.  However, at this signal, I stirred up the still-sleeping crew, and presently we had the anchors up, and the engine started at the slowest possible speed.

The tide was beginning to run in, so we needed very little way on us.  I pointed out Samson to the captain, and, following the “King’s” instructions, told him to steer straight for the negro.  He grumbled not a little.  Of course, if I wanted to run aground, it was none of his affair—­etc., etc.  Then I stationed the sturdiest of the two deck-hands on the port bow with a long oar, while I took the starboard with another.  Very slowly and cautiously we made in, pointing straight for a thick growth of mangrove bushes.  Samson stood there and called: 

“All right, sar.  Keep straight on.  You’ll see your way in a minute.”

And, sure enough, when we were barely fifty feet away from the shore, and there seemed nothing for it but to run dead aground, low down through the floating mangrove branches we caught sight of a narrow gleam starting inland, and in another moment or two our decks were swept with foliage as the Flamingo rustled in, like a bird to cover, through an opening in the bushes barely twice her beam; and there before us, snaking through the brush, was a lane of water which immediately began to broaden between palmetto-fringed banks, and was evidently deep enough for a much larger vessel.

“Plenty of water, sar,” hallooed Samson from the bank, grinning a huge welcome.  “Keep a-going after me,” and he started trotting along the creek-side.

As we pushed into the glassy channel, I standing at the bow, my eyes were arrested by a tremendous flashing commotion in the water to the right and left of us—­like the fierce zigzagging of steel blades, or the ferocious play of submerged lightning.  It was a select company of houndfish and sharks that we had disturbed, lying hellishly in wait there for the prey of the incoming tide.  It was a curiously sinister sight, as though one had come upon a nest of water-devils in council, and the fancy jumped into my mind that here were the spirits of Teach and his crew once more evilly embodied and condemned to haunt for ever this gloomy scene of their crimes.