. These were the old sail,
the coil of rope, and the baling dipper.

By this time the tide had reached its height, and after the usual time
of delay, began to fall once more. The boat was secured to the shore,
and after a time the water began to leave her. Tom sat at a little
distance, wondering what could be the matter with her, and deferring
his examination until the boat should be left aground. It was a
mystery to him how this sudden change had occurred, and why the boat,
which had floated so well during his long drift, should now, all of a
sudden, begin to leak with such astonishing rapidity. Something must
have happened--something serious, too; but what it was, or how it had
happened, he could not, for the life of him, conjecture.

As Tom sat there, the tide gradually left the boat; and as the tide
left, the water ran out, keeping at just the same level inside as the
water outside. This showed, even to his inexperienced eyes, that the
leak must be a very large one, since it admitted of such a ready flow
of water in and out. The water descended lower and lower as he sat,
until, at last, the boat was left by the retreating waves. The water
had all run out.

Tom now advanced, and proceeded to examine her. When he was arranging
her cargo before, the coil of rope had been in the bows. This had
prevented him from detecting anything wrong in the boat. But now, since
everything had been taken out, one glance only was quite sufficient to
make known to him instantly the whole difficulty. There, in the bows,
underneath the very place where the coil of rope had lain, was a huge
aperture. The planks had been beaten in, and one side of the bow was
destroyed beyond hope of remedy.

The sight of such an irremediable calamity as this renewed for a time
the despondency which he had felt at the first sinking of the boat.
Full of depression, he turned away, and tried to account for it all.
It was on the previous day that he had landed--about twenty-four hours
ago. How had he passed the time since then, and what had happened?
This he tried to remember.

In the first place, up to the moment of landing the boat was perfectly
sound, and far from all injury. It had not been hurt during the drift.
It had struck at one place, but the long voyage that had followed
showed that no damage had resulted. Finally, it had not been harmed by
landing on Quaco Ledge. Since that time he had drifted in safety far
across the bay, with