reefs with impunity, on account of the depth of the sea
on them. Mark beat up, on short tacks, therefore, until he found the two
buoys between which he had brought the ship, and passing to windward of
them, he stood off in the direction where he expected to find the reef
over which the Rancocus had beaten. He was not long in making this
discovery. There still floated the buoy of the bower, watching as
faithfully as the seaman on his look-out! Mark ran the boat up to this
well-tried sentinel, and caught the lanyard, holding on by it, after
lowering his sails.

The boat was now moored by the buoy-rope of the ship's anchor, and it
occurred to our young man that a certain use might be made of this
melancholy memorial of the calamity that had befallen the Rancocus. The
anchor lay quite near a reef, on it indeed in one sense; and it was in
such places that fish most abounded. Fishing-tackle was in the boat, and
Mark let down a line. His success was prodigious. The fish were hauled
in almost as fast as he could bait and lower his hook, and what was
more they proved to be larger and finer than those taken at the old
fishing-grounds. By the experience of the half hour he passed at the
spot, Mark felt certain that he could fill his boat there in a day's
fishing. After hauling in some twenty or thirty, however, he cast off
from the lanyard, hoisted his sails, and crossed the reef, still working
to windward.

It was Mark's wish to learn something of the nature and extent of the
shoals in this direction. With this object in view, he continued beating
up, sometimes passing boldly through shallow water, at others going
about to avoid that which he thought might be dangerous, until he
believed himself to be about ten miles to windward of the island. The
ship's masts were his beacon, for the crater had sunk below the horizon,
or if visible at all, it was only at intervals, as the boat was lifted
on a swell, when it appeared a low hummock, nearly awash. It was with
difficulty that the naked spars could be seen at that distance; nor
could they be, except at moments, and that because the compass told the
young man exactly where to look for them.

As for the appearance of the reefs, no naked rock was anywhere to be
seen in this direction, though there were abundant evidences of the
existence of shoals. As well as he could judge, Mark was of opinion that
these shoals extended at least twenty miles in this direction, he having
turned up fu