notice the tide-ripples, Mr. Mark, when you was up in the
cross-trees?"

"I saw them, Bob, and am fully aware of the difficulty of running as
large a vessel as this among them, even with a full crew. But what will
become of us, unless we get the ship into open water?"

"Sure enough, sir. I see no other hope for us, Mr. Mark, but to Robinson
Crusoe it awhile, until our times come; or, till the Lord, in his marcy,
shall see fit to have us picked up."

"Robinson Crusoe it!" repeated Mark, smiling at the quaintness of Bob's
expression, which the well-meaning fellow uttered in all simplicity, and
in perfect good faith--"where are we to find even an uninhabited island,
on which to dwell after the mode of Robinson Crusoe?"

"There's a bit of a reef to-leeward, where I dare say a man might pick
up a living, arter a fashion," answered Bob, coolly; "then, here is the
ship."

"And how long would a hempen cable hold the ship in a place like this,
where every time the vessel lifts to a sea, the clench is chafing on a
rock? No, no, Bob--the ship cannot long remain where she is, depend on
_that_. We must try and pass down to leeward, if we cannot beat the ship
through the dangers to windward."

"Harkee, Mr. Mark; I thought this matter over in my mind, while we was
aloft, and this is my idee as to what is best to be done, for a start.
There's the dingui on the poop, in as good order as ever a boat was. She
will easily carry two on us, and, on a pinch, she might carry half a
dozen. Now, my notion is to get the dingui into the water, to put a
breaker and some grub in her, and to pull, down to that bit of a reef,
and have a survey of it. I'll take the sculls going down, and you can
keep heaving the by way of finding out if there be sich a thang as a
channel in that direction. If the ship is ever to be moved by us two,
it must be by going to leeward, and not by attempting to turn up ag'in
wind and tide among them 'ere rocks, out here to the eastward. No, sir;
let us take the dingui, and surwey the reef, and look for our shipmates;
a'ter which we can best tell what to undertake, with some little hope of
succeeding. The weather seems settled, and the sooner we are off the
better."

This proposal struck Mark's young mind as plausible, as well as
discreet. To recover even a single man would be a great advantage, and
he had lingering hopes that some of the people might yet be found on the
reef. Then Bob's idea about getting the ship th