University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

After the tent on the Summit was erected, Mark passed
much of his leisure time there. Thither he conveyed
many of his books, of which he had a very respectable collection,
his flute, and a portion of his writing materials.
There he could sit and watch the growth of the different
vegetables he was cultivating. As for Bob, he fished a
good deal, both in the way of supplies and for his amusement.
The pigs and poultry fared well, and everything
seemed to thrive but poor Kitty. She loved to follow Mark,
and cast many a longing look up at the Summit, whenever
she saw him strolling about among his plants.

The vegetables on the Summit, or those first put into
the ground, flourished surprisingly. Loam had been added
repeatedly, and they wanted for nothing that could bring
forward vegetation. The melons soon began to run, as
did the cucumbers, squashes, and pumpkins; and by the
end of the next month, there were a dozen large patches
on the mount that were covered by a dense verdure. Nor
was this all; Mark making a discovery about this time,
that afforded him almost as much happiness as when he
first saw his melons in leaf. He was seated one day, with
the walls of his tent brailed up, in order to allow the wind
to blow through, when something dark on the rock caught
his eye. This spot was some little distance from him, and
going to it, he found that large quantities of his grass-seed
had actually taken! Now he might hope to convert that
barren-looking, and often glaring rock, into a beautiful
grassy hill, and render that which was sometimes painful

to the eyes, a pleasure to look upon. The young man
understood the laws of vegetation well enough to be certain
that could the roots of grasses once insinuate themselves
into the almost invisible crevices of the crust that
covered the place, they would of themselves let in light,
air and water enough for their own wants, and thus increase
the very fertility on which they subsisted. He did
not fail, however, to aid nature, by scattering a fresh supply
of guano all over the hill.

While Mark was thus employed at home, Bob rowed out
to the reef, bringing in his fish in such quantities that it
occurred to Mark to convert them also into manure. A
fresh half-acre was accordingly broken up, within the crater,
the cool of the mornings and of the evenings being
taken for the toil; and, as soon as a bed was picked over,
quantities of fish were buried in it, and left there to decay.
Nor did Betts neglect the sea-weed the while. On several
occasions he floated large bodies of it in, from the outer
reefs, which were all safely landed and wheeled into the
crater, where a long pile of it was formed, mingled with
loam from Loam Island, and guano. This work, however,
gradually ceased, as the season advanced, and summer
came in earnest. That season, however, did not prove by
any means as formidable as Mark had anticipated, the sea-breezes
keeping the place cool and refreshed. Our mariners
now missed the rain, which was by no means as frequent
as it had been, though it fell in larger quantities
when it did come. The stock had to be watered for several
weeks, the power of the sun causing all the water that
lodged in the cavities of the rocks to evaporate almost immediately.

During the time it was too warm to venture out in the
dingui, except for half an hour of a morning, or for as long
a period of an evening, Mark turned his attention to the
ship again. Seizing suitable moments, each sail was
loosened, thoroughly dried, unbent, and got below. An
awning was got out, and spread, and the decks were wet
down, morning and evening, both for the purposes of
cleanliness, and to keep them from cheeking. The hold
was now entered, and overhauled, for the first time since
the accident. A great many useful things were found in

it, and among other articles two barrels of good sharp
vinegar, which Friend Abraham White had caused to be
put on board to be used with anything that could be pickled,
as an anti-scorbutic. The onions and cucumbers
both promising so well, Mark rejoiced at this discovery,
determining at once to use some of the vinegar on a part
of his expected crop of those two vegetables.

One day as Bob was rummaging about in the hold, and
Mark was looking on, that being the coolest place on the
whole reef, the former got hold of a piece of wood, and
began to tug at it to draw it out from among a pile that lay
in a dark corner. After several efforts, the stick came,
when Mark, struck with a glimpse he got of its form, bade
Bob bring it under the light of the hatchway. The instant
he got a good look at it, Woolston knew that Bob's `foolish,
crooked stick, which was fit to stow nowhere,' as the
honest fellow had described it when it gave him so much
trouble, was neither more nor less than one of the ribs of
a boat of larger size than common.

“This is providential, truly!” exclaimed Mark. “Your
crooked stick, Bob, is a part of the frame of the pinnace
of which you spoke, and which we had given up, as a thing
not to be found on board!”

“You 're right, Mr. Mark, you 're right!” answered Bob
—“and I must have been oncommon stupid not to have
thought of it, when it came so hard. And if there 's one
of the boat's bones stowed in that place, there must be
more to be found in the same latitude.”

This was true enough. After working in that dark
corner of the hold for several hours, all the materials of
the intended craft were found and collected in the steerage.
Neither Mark nor Betts was a boat-builder, or a shipwright;
but each had a certain amount of knowledge on
the subject, and each well knew where every piece was
intended to be put. What a revolution this discovery
made in the feelings of our young husband! He had never
totally despaired of seeing Bridget again, for that would
scarce have comported with his youth and sanguine temperament;
but the hope had, of late, become so very dim,
as to survive only as that feeling will endure in the bosoms
of the youthful and inexperienced. Mark had lived a long

time for his years; had seen more and performed far more
than usually falls to persons of his age, and he was, by
character, prudent and practical; but it would have been
impossible for one who had lived as long and as well as
himself, to give up every expectation of being restored to
his bride, even in circumstances more discouraging than
those in which he was actually placed. Still, he had been
slowly accustoming himself to the idea of a protracted
separation, and had never lost sight of the expediency of
making his preparations for passing his entire life in the
solitary place where he and Betts had been cast by a mysterious
and unexpected dispensation of a Divine Providence.
When Bob, from time to time, insisted on his
account of the materials for the pinnace being in the ship,
Mark had listened incredulously, unconscious himself how
much his mind had been occupied by Bridget when this
part of the cargo had been taken in, and unwilling to believe
such an acquisition could have been made without
his knowledge. Now that he saw it, however, a tumultuous
rushing of all the blood in his body towards his heart,
almost overpowered him, and the future entirely changed
its aspects. He did not doubt an instant, of the ability of
Bob and himself to put these blessed materials together, or
of their success in navigating the mild sea around them,
for any necessary distance, in a craft of the size this must
turn out to be. A bright vista, with Bridget's brighter
countenance at its termination, glowed before his imagination,
and a great deal of wholesome philosophy and Christian
submission were unsettled, as it might be, in the
twinkling of an eye, by this all-important discovery. Mark
had never abandoned the thought of constructing a little
vessel with materials torn from the ship; but that would
have been a most laborious, as well as a doubtful experiment,
while here was the problem solved, with a certainty and
precision almost equal to one in mathematics!

The agitation and revulsion of feeling produced in Mark
by the discovery of the materials of the pinnace, were so
great as to prevent him from maturing any plan for several
days. During that time he could perceive in himself an
alteration that amounted almost to an entire change of
character. The vines on the Summit were now in full

leaf, and they covered broad patches of the rock with their
luxuriant vegetation, while the grass could actually be seen
from the ship, converting the drab-coloured concretions
of the mount into slopes and acclivities of verdure. But,
all this delighted him no longer. Home and Bridget met
him even in the fanciful and now thriving beds within the
crater, where everything appeared to push forward with a
luxuriance and promise of return, far exceeding what had
once been his fondest expectations. He could see nothing,
anticipate nothing, talk of nothing, think of nothing, but
these new-found means of quitting the Reef, and of returning
to the abodes of men, and to the arms of his young
wife.

Betts took things more philosophically. He had made
up his mind to `Robinson Crusoe it' a few years, and,
though he had often expressed a wish that the dingui was
of twice its actual size, he would have been quite as well
content with this new boat could it be cut down to one-fourth
of its real dimensions. He submitted to Mark's
superior information, however; and when the latter told
him that he could wait no longer for the return of cooler
weather, or for the heat of the sun to become less intense
before he began to set up the frame of his craft, as had
been the first intention, Bob acquiesced in the change of
plan, without remonstrance, bent on taking things as they
came, in humility and cheerfulness.

Nevertheless, it was far easier bravely to determine in
this matter, than to execute. The heat was now so intense,
for the greater part of the day, that it would have far exceeded
the power of our two mariners to support it, on a
naked rock, and without shade of any sort. The frame
of the pinnace must be set up somewhere near the water,
regular ways being necessary to launch her; and nowhere,
on the shore, was the smallest shade to be found, without
recourse to artificial means of procuring it. As Mark's
impatience would no longer brook delay, this artificial
shade, therefore, was the first thing to be attended to.

The leeward end of the reef was chosen for the new
ship-yard. Although this choice imposed a good deal of
additional labour on the two workmen, by compelling them
to transport all the materials rather more than a mile, reflection

and examination induced Mark to select the spot he
did. The formation of the rock was more favourable there,
he fancied, than in any other place he could find; offering
greater facilities for launching. This was one motive;
but the principal inducement was connected with an apprehension
of floods. By the wall-like appearance of the
exterior base of the mount, by the smoothness of the surface
of the Reef in general, which, while it had many inequalities,
wore the appearance of being semi-polished by
the washing of water over it; and by the certain signs that
were to be found on most of the lower half of the plain of
the crater itself, Mark thought it apparent that the entire
reef, the crater excepted, had been often covered with the
water of the ocean, and that at no very distant day. The
winter months were usually the tempestuous months in
that latitude, though hurricanes might at any time occur.
Now, the winter was yet an untried experiment with our
two `reefers,' as Bob sometimes laughingly called himself
and Mark, and hurricanes were things that often raised
the seas in their neighbourhood several feet in an hour or
two. Should the water be actually driven upon the Reef,
so as to admit of a current to wash across it, or the waves
to roll along its surface, the pinnace would be in the greatest
danger of being carried off before it could be even
launched. All these things Mark bore in mind, and he
chose the spot he did, with an eye to these floods, altogether.
It might be six or eight months before they could
be ready to get the pinnace into the water, and it now
wanted but six to the stormy season. At the western, or
leeward, extremity of the island, the little craft would be
under the lee of the crater, which would form a sort of
breakwater, and might be the means of preventing it from
being washed away. Then the rock, just at that spot, was
three or four feet higher than at any other point, sufficiently
near the sea to admit of launching with ease; and the
two advantages united, induced our young `reefer' to incur
the labour of transporting the materials the distance named,
in preference to foregoing them. The raft, however, was
put in requisition, and the entire frame, with a few of the
planks necessary for a commencement, was carried round
at one load.

Previously to laying the keel of the pinnace, Mark named
it the Neshamony, after a creek that was nearly opposite
to the Rancocus, another inlet of the Delaware, that had
given its name to the ship from the circumstance that
Friend Abraham White had been born on its low banks.
The means of averting the pains and penalties of working
in the sun, were also attended to, as indeed the great preliminary
measure in this new enterprise. To this end, the
raft was again put in requisition; an old main-course was
got out of the sail-room, and lowered upon the raft; spare
spars were cut to the necessary length, and thrown into
the water, to be towed down in company; ropes, &c., were
provided, and Bob sailed anew on this voyage. It was a
work of a good deal of labour to get the raft to windward,
towing having been resorted to as the easiest process, but
a trip to leeward was soon made. In twenty minutes after
this cargo had left the ship, it reached its point of destination.

The only time when our men could work at even their
awning, were two hours early in the morning, and as many
after the sun had got very low, or had absolutely set. Eight
holes had to be drilled into the lava, to a depth of two feet
each. Gunpowder, in very small quantities, was used, or
these holes could not have been made in a twelvemonth.
But by drilling with a crowbar a foot or two into the rock,
and charging the cavity with a very small portion of powder,
the lava was cracked, when the stones rather easily
were raised by means of the picks and crows. Some idea
may be formed of the amount of labour that was expended
on this, the first step in the new task, by the circumstance
that a month was passed in setting those eight awning-posts
alone. When up, however, they perfectly answered the
purpose, everything having been done in a thorough, seaman-like
manner. At the top of each post, itself a portion
of solid spar, a watch-tackle was lashed, by means of which
the sail was bowsed up to its place. To prevent the bagging
unavoidable in an awning of that size, several uprights
were set in the centre, on end, answering their purpose
sufficiently without boring into the rocks.

Bob was in raptures with the new `ship-yard.' It was
as large as the mainsail of a ship of four hundred tons,

was complete as to shade, with the advantage of letting the
breeze circulate, and had a reasonable chance of escaping
from the calamities of a flood. Mark, too, was satisfied
with the result, and the very next day after this task was
completed, our shipwrights set to work to lay their keel.
That day was memorable on another account. Bob had
gone to the Summit in quest of a tool left there, in fitting
up the boat of Mark, and while on the mount, he ascertained
the important fact that the melons were beginning
to ripen. He brought down three or four of these delicious
fruits, and Mark had the gratification of tasting some
of the bounties of Providence, which had been bestowed,
as a reward of his own industry and forethought. It was
necessary to eat of these melons in moderation, however;
but it was a great relief to get them at all, after subsisting
for so long a time on salted meats, principally, with no
other vegetables but such as were dry, and had been long
in the ship. It was not the melons alone, however, that
were getting to be ripe; for, on examining himself, among
the vines which now covered fully an acre of the Summit,
Mark found squashes, cucumbers, onions, sweet-potatoes,
tomatoes, string-beans, and two or three other vegetables,
all equally fit to be used. From that time, some of these
plants were put into the pot daily, and certain slight apprehensions
which Woolston had begun again to entertain
on the subject of scurvy, were soon dissipated. As for the
garden within the crater, which was much the most extensive
and artistical, it was somewhat behind that on the
Summit, having been later tilled; but everything, there,
looked equally promising, and Mark saw that one acre,
well worked, would produce more than he and Betts could
consume in a twelvemonth.

It was an important day on the Reef when the keel of
the pinnace was laid. On examining his materials, Mark
ascertained that the boat-builders had marked and numbered
each portion of the frame, each plank, and everything
else that belonged to the pinnace. Holes were
bored, and everything had been done in the boat-yard that
could be useful to those who, it was expected, were to put
the work together in a distant part of the world. This
greatly facilitated our new boat-builders' labours in the

way of skill, besides having done so much of the actual
toil to their hands. As soon as the keel was laid, Mark
set up the frame, which came together with very little
trouble. The wailes were then got out, and were fitted,
each piece being bolted in its allotted place. As the work
had already been put together, there was little or no dubbing
necessary. Aware that the parts had once been accurately
fitted to each other, Mark was careful not to disturb
their arrangement by an unnecessary use of the adze,
or broad-axe, experimenting and altering the positions of
the timbers and planks; but, whenever he met with any
obstacle, in preference to cutting and changing the materials
themselves, he persevered until the parts came together
as had been contemplated. By observing this caution,
the whole frame was set up, the wailes were fitted and
bolted, and the garboard-streak got on and secured, without
taking off a particle of the wood, though a week was necessary
to effect these desired objects.

Our mariners now measured their new frame. The
keel was just four-and-twenty feet long, the distance between
the knight-heads and the taffrail being six feet
greater; the beam, from outside to outside, was nine feet,
and the hold might be computed at five feet in depth.
This gave something like a measurement of eleven tons;
the pinnace having been intended for a craft a trifle smaller
than this. As a vessel of eleven tons might make very
good weather in a sea-way, if properly handled, the result
gave great satisfaction, Mark cheering Bob with accounts
of crafts, of much smaller dimensions, that had navigated
the more stormy seas, with entire safety, on various occasions.

The planking of the Neshamony was no great matter,
being completed the week it was commenced. The caulking,
however, gave more trouble, though Bob had done a
good deal of that sort of work in his day. It took a fortnight
for the honest fellow to do the caulking to his own
mind, and before it was finished another great discovery
was made by rummaging in the ship's hold, in quest of
some of the fastenings which had not at first been found.
A quantity of old sheet-copper, that had run its time on a
vessel's bottom, was brought to light, marked “copper for

the pinnace.” Friend Abraham White had bethought him
of the worms of the low latitudes, and had sent out enough
of the refuse copper of a vessel that had been broken up
to cover the bottom of this little craft fairly up to her bends
To work, then, Mark and Bob went to put on the sheathing-paper
and copper that had thus bountifully been provided
for them, as soon as the seams were well payed.
This done, and it was no great job, the paint-brush was
set to work, and the hull was completed! In all, Mark
and Betts were eight weeks, hard at work, putting their
pinnace together. When she was painted, the summer
was more than half gone. The laying of the deck had
given more trouble than any other portion of the work on
the boat, and this because it was not a plain, full deck, or
one that covered the whole of the vessel, but left small
stern-sheets aft, which was absolutely necessary to the
comfort and safety of those she was to carry. The whole
was got together, however, leaving Mark and Bob to rejoice
in their success thus far, and to puzzle their heads
about the means of getting their craft into the water, now
she was built. In a word, it was far easier to put together
a vessel of ten tons, that had been thus ready fitted to their
hands, than it was to launch her.

As each of our mariners had necessarily seen many vessels
in their cradles, each had some idea of what it was
now necessary to do. Mark had laid the keel as near the
water as he could get it, and by this precaution had saved
himself a good deal of labour. It was very easy to find
materials for the ways, many heavy planks still remaining;
but the difficulty was to lay them so that they would not
spread. Here the awning-posts were found of good service,
plank being set on their edges against them, which,
in their turn, were made to sustain the props of the ways.
In order to save materials in the cradle, the ways themselves
were laid on blocks, and they were secured as well
as the skill of our self-formed shipwrights could do it.
They had some trouble in making the cradle, and had
once to undo all they had done, in consequence of a mistake.
At length Mark was of opinion they had taken all
the necessary precautions, and told Betts that he thought
they might venture to attempt launching the next day.

But Bob made a suggestion which changed this plan, and
caused a delay that was attended with very serious consequences.

The weather had become cloudy, and a little menacing,
for the last few days, and Bob proposed that they should
lower the awning, get up shears on the rock, and step the
mast of the pinnace before they launched her, as a means
of saving some labour. The spar was not very heavy, it
was true, and it might be stepped by crossing a couple of
the oars in the boat itself; but a couple of light spars—
top-gallant studding-sail booms for instance—would enable
them to do it much more readily, before the craft was put
into the water, than it could be done afterwards. Mark
listened to the suggestion, and acquiesced. The awning
was consequently lowered, and got out of the way. To
prevent the hogs from tearing the sail, it was placed on
two of the wheelbarrows and wheeled up into the crater,
whither those animals had never yet found their way.
Then the shears were got up, and the mast was stepped
and rigged; the boat's sails were found and bent. Mark
now thought enough had been done, and that, the next
day, they might undertake the launch. But another suggestion
of Bob's delayed the proceedings.

The weather still continued clouded and menacing.
Betts was of opinion, therefore, that it might be well to
stow the provisions and water they intended to use in the
pinnace, while she was on the stocks, as they could work
round her so much the more easily then than afterwards.
Accordingly, the breakers were got out, on board the ship,
and filled with fresh water. They were then struck into
the raft. A barrel of beef, and one of pork followed, with
a quantity of bread. At two trips the raft carried all the
provisions and stores that were wanted, and the cargoes
were landed, rolled up to the side of the pinnace, hoisted
on board of her, by means of the throat-halliard, and properly
stowed. Two grapnels, or rather one grapnel, and
a small kedge, were found among the pinnace's materials,
everything belonging to her having been stowed in the
same part of the ship. These, too, were carried round to
the ship-yard, got on board, and their hawsers bent. In a
word, every preparation was made that might be necessary

to make sail on the pinnace, and to proceed to sea in her,
at once.

It was rather late in the afternoon of the third clouded
day, that Betts himself admitted no more could be done to
the Neshamony, previously to putting her into the water.
When our two mariners ceased the business of the day,
therefore, it was with the understanding that they would
turn out early in the morning, wedge up, and launch. An
hour of daylight remaining, Mark went up to the Summit
to select a few melons, and to take a look at the state of
the plantations and gardens. Before ascending the hill,
the young man walked through his garden in the crater,
where everything was flourishing and doing well. Many
of the vegetables were by this time fit to eat, and there
was every prospect of there being a sufficient quantity
raised to meet the wants of two or three persons for a long
period ahead. The sight of these fruits of his toil, and
the luxuriance of the different plants, caused a momentary
feeling of regret in Mark at the thought of being about to
quit the place for ever. He even fancied he should have
a certain pleasure in returning to the Reef; and once a
faint outline of a plan came over his mind, in which he
fancied that he might bring Bridget to this place, and pass
the rest of his life with her, in the midst of its peace and
tranquillity. This was but a passing thought, however,
and was soon forgotten in the pictures that crowded on
his mind, in connection with the great anticipated event of
the next day.

While strolling about the little walks of his garden, the
appearance of verdure along the edge of the crater, or immediately
beneath the cliff, caught Mark's eye. Going hastily
to the spot, he found that there was a long row of plants of
a new sort, not only appearing above the ground, but already
in leaf, and rising several inches in height. These were
the results of the seeds of the oranges, lemons, limes, shaddocks,
figs, and other fruits of the tropics, that he had
planted there as an experiment, and forgotten. While his
mind was occupied with other things, these seeds had sent
forth their shoots, and the several trees were growing with
the rapidity and luxuriance that distinguish vegetation
within the tropics. As Mark's imagination pictured what

might be the effects of cultivation and care on that singular
spot, a sigh of regret mingled with his hopes for the future,
as he recollected he was so soon to abandon the place for
ever; while on the Summit, too, this feeling of regret was
increased, rather than diminished. So much of the grass-seed
had taken, and the roots had already so far extended,
that acres were beginning to look verdant and smiling.
Two or three months had brought everything forward prodigiously,
and the frequency of the rains in showers, added
to the genial warmth of the sun, gave to vegetation a quickness
and force that surprised, as much as it delighted our
young man.

That night Mark and Betts both slept in the ship. They
had a fancy it might be the last in which they could ever
have any chance of doing so, and attachment to the vessel
induced both to return to their old berths; for latterly they
had slept in hammocks, swung beneath the ship-yard awning,
in order to be near their work. Mark was awoke at
a very early hour, by the howling of a gale among the rigging
and spars of the Rancocus, sounds that he had not
heard for many a day, and which, at first, were actually
pleasant to his ears. Throwing on his clothes, and going
out on the quarter-deck, he found that a tempest was upon
them. The storm far exceeded anything that he had ever
before witnessed in the Pacific. The ocean was violently
agitated, and the rollers came in over the reef, to windward,
with a force and majesty that seemed to disregard
the presence of the rocks. It was just light, and Mark
called Bob, in alarm. The aspect of things was really
serious, and, at first, our mariners had great apprehensions
for the safety of the ship. It was true, the sea-wall resisted
every shock of the rollers that reached it, but even the
billows after they were broken by this obstacle, came down
upon the vessel with a violence that brought a powerful
strain on every rope-yarn in the sheet-cable. Fortunately,
the ground-tackle, on which the safety of the vessel depended,
was of the very best quality, and the anchor was
known to have an excellent hold. Then, the preservation
of the ship was no longer a motive of the first consideration
with them; that of the pinnace being the thing now
most to be regarded. It might grieve them both to see

the Rancocus thrown upon the rocks, and broken up; but
of far greater account was it to their future prospects that
the Neshamony should not be injured. Nor were the signs
of the danger that menaced the boat to be disregarded.
The water of the ocean appeared to be piling in among
these reefs, the rocks of which resisted its passage to leeward,
and already was washing up on the surface of the
Reef, in places, threatening them with a general inundation.
It was necessary to look after the security of various
articles that were scattered about on the outer plain, and
our mariners went ashore to do so.

Although intending so soon to abandon the Reef altogether,
a sense of caution induced Mark to take everything
he could within the crater. All the lower portions
of the outer plain were already covered with water, and
those sagacious creatures, the hogs, showed by their snuffing
and disturbed manner of running about, that they had
internal as well as external warnings of danger. Mark
pulled aside the curtain, and let all the animals into the
crater. Poor Kitty was delighted to get on the Summit,
whither she soon found her way, by ascending the steps
commonly used by her masters. Fortunately for the plants,
the grass was in too great abundance, and too grateful to
her, not to be her choice in preference to any other food.
As for the pigs, they got at work in a pile of sea-weed, and
overlooked the garden, which was at some distance, until
fairly glutted, and ready to lie down.

In the meanwhile the tempest increased in violence, the
sea continued to pile among the rocks, and the water actually
covered the whole of the outer plain of the Reef.
Now it was that Mark comprehended how the base of the
crater had been worn by water, the waves washing past it
with tremendous violence. There was actually a strong
current running over the whole of the reef, without the
crater; the water rushing to leeward, as if glad to get past
the obstacle of the island on any terms, in order to hasten
away before the tempest. Mark was fully half an hour
engaged in looking to his marquee and its contents, all of
which were exposed, more or less, to the power of the
gale. After securing his books, furniture, &c., and seeing
that the stays of the marquee itself were likely to hold out,

he cast an eye to the ship, which was on that side of the
island, also. The staunch old 'Cocus, as Bob called her,
was rising and falling with the waves that now disturbed
her usually placid basin; but, as yet, her cable and anchor
held her, and no harm was done. Fortunately, our mariners,
when they unbent the sails, had sent down all the
upper and lighter spars, and had lowered the fore and
main yards on the gunwale, measures of precaution that
greatly lessened the strain on her ground-tackle. The
top-gallant-masts had also been lowered, and the vessel
was what seamen usually term `snug.' Mark would have
been very, very sorry to see her lost, even though he did
expect to have very little more use out of her; for he loved
the craft from habit.

After taking this look at the ship, our mate passed round
the Summit, having two or three tumbles on his way in
consequence of puffs of wind, until he reached the point
over the gate-way, which was that nearest to the ship-yard.
It now occurred to him that possibly it might become necessary
to look a little to the security of the Neshamony,
for by this time the water on the reef was two or three feet
deep. To his surprise, on looking round for Bob, whom
he thought to be at work securing property near the gate-way,
he ascertained that the honest fellow had waded down
to the ship-yard, and clambered on board the pinnace, with
a view to take care of her. The distance between the
point where Mark now stood and the Neshamony exceeded
half a mile, and communication with the voice would have
been next to impossible, had the wind not blown as it did.
With the roaring of the seas, and the howling of the gale,
it was of course entirely out of the question. Mark, however,
could see his friend, and see that he was gesticulating,
in the most earnest manner, for himself to join him. Then
it was he first perceived that the pinnace was in motion,
seeming to move on her ways. Presently the blockings
were washed from under her, and the boat went astern
half her length at a single surge. Mark made a bound
down the hill, intending to throw himself into the raging
surf, and to swim off to the aid of Betts; but, pausing an
instant to choose a spot at which to get down the steep,
he looked towards the ship-yard, and saw the pinnace
lifted on a sea, and washed fairly clear of the land!