Of course he had not neglected to secure it with a line, by which he hauled it in towards the rock, securing it in a natural basin which was just large enough for such a purpose. So great, indeed, were his apprehensions of losing his boat, which now seemed so precious to him, that he had worked some ringbolts out of the ship and let them into the rock, where he had secured them by means of melted lead, in order to make fast to.

The Bridget was not more than a fourth of the size of the Neshamony, though rather more than half as long. Nevertheless, she was a good boat; and Mark, knowing that he must depend on sails principally to move her, had built a short deck forward to prevent the seas from breaking aboard her, as well as to give him a place in which he might stow away various articles, under cover from the rain. Her ballast was breakers, filled with fresh water, of which there still remained several in the ship. All these, as well as her masts, sails, oars, &c., were in her when she was launched; and that important event having taken place early in the morning, Mark could not restrain his impatience for a cruise, but determined to go out on the reef at once, further than he had ever yet ventured in the dingui, in order to explore the seas around him. Accordingly, he put some food on board, loosened his fasts, and made sail.

The instant the boat moved ahead, and began to obey her helm, Mark felt as if he had found a new companion. Hitherto Kitty had, in a measure, filled this place; but a boat had been the young man's delight on the Delaware, in his boyhood, and he had not tacked his present craft more than two or three times, before he caught himself talking to it, and commending it, as he would a human being. As the wind usually blew in the same direction, and generally a good stiff breeze, Mark beat up between the Reef and Guano Island, working round the weather end of the former, until he came out at the anchorage of the Rancocus. After beating about in that basin a little while, as if merely to show off the Bridget to the ship, Mark put the former close by the wind, and stood off in the channel by which he and Bob had brought the latter into her present berth.

It was easy enough to avoid all such breakers as would be dangerous to a boat, by simply keeping out of white water; but the Bridget could pass over most of the 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 fully 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.