the instant when I arrived at my
momentous decision, was now all aboil with foam for a space of three or
four ship's-lengths, as though an impassable obstruction existed there.
If this were the case, but one slender hope remained for us, the hope
that before that obstruction should be reached we might find a part of
the channel wide enough to permit the ship to round-to and anchor, thus
giving us time to make a more deliberate search for a way of escape.

This hope, however, was an exceedingly slender one, for the channel
which we were traversing was appallingly narrow, averaging very little
more than a couple of lengths of the ship, which was considerably less
than half the minimum space that I required for the contemplated
manoeuvre. But while I was anxiously searching the channel ahead, on
the lookout for such a spot, I suddenly caught sight of another channel,
branching out of the one which we were then traversing, which
unquestionably ran without a break into the small patch of open water of
which I have already spoken, and from which a good channel led into the
open sea. The only question was whether there was room enough to allow
the ship to take the sweep out of the one channel into the other without
going ashore upon the reef; for the new channel branched off at a very
acute angle, and there appeared to be even less width than usual at the
junction of the two channels.

Here was another momentous question for me to decide, unaided, in the
space of a few seconds--for there was not time enough to permit of my
summoning the boatswain aloft and consulting him upon the matter. I had
to make up my mind whether to continue along the channel which the ship
was then in, trusting that the appearance indicative of an obstruction
was illusory, or whether I would take the risk of wrecking the ship on
the reef in an endeavour to pass round a very acute angle into the
newly-discovered channel, which I was by this time able to see would
certainly enable us to reach open water. It was difficult to determine
which of the two alternatives was the more desperate; but as the ship
went driving along toward the point, once past which a choice would no
longer be possible, I fancied that the prospect of being able to turn
into the new channel looked a trifle less hopeless than it did a few
minutes earlier, while the appearance of an obstruction in the original
channel was still as menacing as ever, I therefore determined to put al