lly five leagues without getting clear of them. At that
distance from his solitary home, and out of sight of everything like
land, did the young man eat his frugal, but good and nourishing dinner,
with his jib-sheet to windward and the boat hove-to. The freshness of
the breeze had induced him to reef, and under that short sail, he found
the Bridget everything he could wish. It was now about the middle of the
afternoon, and Mark thought it prudent to turn out his reef, and run
down for the crater. In half an hour he caught a sight of the spars of
the ship; and ten minutes later, the Summit appeared above the horizon.

It had been the intention of our young sailor to stay out all night, had
the weather been promising. His wish was to ascertain how he might
manage the boat, single-handed, while he slept, and also to learn the
extent of the shoals. As the extraordinary fertility of the crater
superseded the necessity of his labouring much to keep himself supplied
with food, he had formed a plan of cruising off the shoals, for days at
a time, in the hope of falling in with something that was passing, and
which might carry him back to the haunts of men. No vessel would or
could come in sight of the crater, so long as the existence of the reefs
was known; but the course steered by the Rancocus was a proof that ships
did occasionally pass in that quarter of the Pacific. Mark had indulged
in no visionary hopes on this subject, for he knew he might keep in the
offing a twelvemonth and see nothing; but an additional twenty-four
hours might realize all his hopes.

The weather, however on this his first experiment, did not encourage him
to remain out the whole night. On the contrary, by the time the crater
was in sight, Mark thought he had not seen a more portentous-looking sky
since he had been on the Reef. There was a fiery redness in the
atmosphere that alarmed him, and he would have rejoiced to be at home,
in order to secure his stock within the crater. From the appearances, he
anticipated another tempest with its flood. It is true, it was not the
season when the last occurred, but the climate might admit of these
changes. The difference between summer and winter was very trifling on
that reef, and a hurricane, or a gale, was as likely to occur in the one
as in the other.

Just as the Bridget was passing the two buoys by which the ship-channel
had been marked, her sail flapped. This was a bad omen, for it betokened
a shift of