Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/79

 OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 73 a cover, and to drop the anchor. In order to do this with success, Mark now commenced hauling down the jib. By the time he had that sail well in, the ship was off the end of the sunken reef, when Bob put his helm a-starboard and rounded it. Down came the main-topmast staysail, and Mark jumped on th e forecastle, while he called out to Bob to lash the helm a-Jee. In an instant Bob was at the young man s side, and both waited for the ship to luff into the wind, and to forge as near as possible to the reef. This was successfully done also, and Mark let go the stopper within twenty feet of the wall of the sunken reef, just as the ship began to drive astern. The canvas was rolled up and secured, the cable payed out, until the ship lay just mid-channel between the island and the sea-wall without, and the whole secured. Then Bob took off his tarpaulin and gave three cheers, while Mark walked aft, silently returning thanks to God for the complete success of this important movement. Important most truly was this change. Not only was the ship anchored, with her heaviest anchor down, and her best cable out, in good holding ground, and in a basin where very little swell ever penetrated, and that entering laterally and diminished in force; but there she was within a hundred and fifty feet of the island, at all times accessible by means of the dingui, a boat that it would not do to trust in the water at all outside when it blew in the least fresh. In short, it was scarcely possible to have a vessel in a safer berth, so long as her spars and hull were exposed to the gales of the ocean, or one that was more convenient to those who used the island. By getting down her spars and other hamper, the power of the winds would be much lessened, though Mark felt little apprehension of the winds at that season of the year, so long as the sea could not make a long rake against the vessel. He believed the ship safe for the present, and felt the hope of still finding a pas sage, through the reef to leeward, reviving in his breast. Well might Mark and Bob rejoice in the great feat they had just performed. That night it blew so heavily as to leave little doubt that the ship never could have been kept at her anchor, outside ; and had she struck adrift in the darkness, nothing could have saved them from almost im- VOL. I. 7