Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/46

 40 TIIECRATER; &quot; Not a bit ol it, Mr. Woolston,&quot; answered Bob, hitch ing up his trowsers, &quot; and I d a pretty good look ahead, too.&quot; This made still more against Mark, and Captain Crutch- ely sent for the chart. Over this map he and the second- mate pondered with a sort of muzzy sagacity, when they came to the conclusion that a clear sea must prevail around them, in all directions, for a distance exceeding a thousand miles. A great deal is determined in any case of a di lemma, when it is decided that this or that fact must be so. Captain Crutchely would not have arrived at this positive conclusion so easily, had not his reasoning powers been so much stimulated by his repeated draughts of rum and water, that afternoon ; all taken, as he said and believed, not so much out of love for the beverage itself, as out of love for Mrs. John Crutchely. Nevertheless, our captain was accustomed to take care of a ship, and he was not yet in a condition to forget all his duties, in circumstances so critical. As Mark solemnly and steadily repeated his own belief that there were breakers ahead, he so far yielded to the opinions of his youthful chief-mate as to order the deep- sea up, and to prepare to sound. This operation of casting the deep-sea lead is not done in a moment, but, on board a merchant vessel, usually occupies from a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes. The ship must first be hove-to, and her way ought to be as near lost as possible before the cast is made. Then the getting along of the line, the stationing of the men, and the sounding and hauling in again, occupy a good many minutes. By the time it was all over, on this occasion, it was getting to be night. The misty, drizzling weather threatened to make the darkness intense, and Mark felt more and more impressed with the danger in which the ship was placed. The cast of the lead produced no other result than the certainty that bottom was not to be found with four hun dred fathoms of line out. No one, however, not even the muzzy Hillson, attached much importance to this fact, in asmuch as it was known that the coral reefs often rise like perpendicular walls, in the ocean, having no bottom to be found within a cable s-length of them. Then Mark did