Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/45

 OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 39 lee, with the gale blowing in her teeth, and heavy seas sending her bodily, and surely, however slowly, on the very breakers she is struggling to avoid ! Captain Crutch- ely had riot been aloft five minutes before he hailed the deck, and ordered Mark to send Bob Betts up to the cross- trees. Bob had the reputation of being the brightest look out in the vessel, and was usually employed when land was about to be approached, or a sail was expected to be made. He went up the fore-rigging like a squirrel, and was soon at the captain s side, both looking anxiously to leeward. A few minutes after the ship had hauled by the wind, both came down, stopping in the top, however, to take one more look to leeward. The second-mate stood waiting the further descent of the captain, with a sort of leering look of contempt on his hard, well-dyed features, which seemed to anticipate that it would soon be known that Mark s white water had lost its colour, and become blue water once more. But Cap tain Crutchely did not go as far as this, when he got down. He admitted that he had seen nothing that he could very decidedly say was breakers, but that, once or twice, when it lighted up a little, there had been a gleaming along the western horizon which a good deal puzzled him* It might be white water, or it might be only the -last rays of the setting sun tipping the combs of the regular seas. Bob Betts, too, was as much at fault as his captain, and a sar castic remark or two of Hillson, the second-mate, were fust bringing Mark s breakers into discredit. &quot; Jest look at the chart, Captain Crutchely,&quot; put in Hillson &quot; a regular Tower Hill chart as ever was made, and you 11 see there can be no white water hereabouts. If a man is to shorten sail and haul his wind, at every dead whale he falls in with, in these seas, his owners will have the balance on the wrong side of the book at the end of the v y ge !&quot; This told hard against Mark, and considerably in Hill- son s favour. &quot;And could you see nothing of breakers ahead, Bob?&quot; demanded Mark, with an emphasis on the you which pretty plainly implied that the young man was not so much surprised that the captain had not seen them.