Kitty gladly preceded him, and some time after the sun had set, they regained the Reef. About a mile short of home, Mark passed all the hogs, snugly deposited in a bed of mud, where they had esconced themselves for the night, as one draws himself beneath his blanket.

Chapter XII

*

"All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, gun, or need of any engine
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth
Of its own kind, all foizen, all abundance
To feed my innocent people."

Tempest.

For the next ten days Mark Woolston did little but explore. By crossing the channel around the Reef, which he had named the 'Armlet' (the young man often talked to himself), he reached the sea-wall, and, once there, he made a long excursion to the eastward. He now walked dryshod over those very reefs among which he had so recently sailed in the Bridget, though the ship-channel through which he and Bob had brought in the Rancocus still remained. The two buoys that had marked the narrow passage were found, high and dry; and the anchor of the ship, that by which she rode after beating over the rocks into deep water, was to be seen so near the surface, that the stock could be reached by the hand.

There was little difference in character between the newly-made land to windward and that which Mark had found in the opposite direction. Large pools, or lakes, of salt water, deposits of mud and sand, some of which were of considerable extent and thickness, sounds, creeks, and arms of the sea, with here and there a hummock of rock that rose fifteen or twenty feet above the face of the main body, were the distinguishing peculiarities. For two days Mark explored in this direction, or to windward, reaching as far by his estimate of the distance, as the place where he had bore up in his cruise in the Bridget. Finding a great many obstacles in the way, channels, mud, &c., he determined, on the afternoon of the second day, to return home, get a stock of supplies, and come out in the boat, in order to ascertain if he could not now reach the open water to windward.

On the morning of the fourth day after the earthquake, and the occurrence of the mighty change that had altered the whole face of the scene around him, the young man got under way in the Bridget. He shaped his course to windward, beating out of the Armlet by a narrow passage, that carried him into a reach that stretched away for several miles, to the northward and eastward, in nearly a straight line. This passage, or sound, was about half a mile in width, and there was water enough in nearly all parts of it to float the largest sized vessel. By this passage the poor hermit, small as was his chance of ever seeing such an event occur, hoped it might be possible to come to the very side of the Reef in a ship.

When about three leagues from the crater, the 'Hope Channel,' as Mark named this long and direct passage, divided into two, one trending still more to the northward, running nearly due north, indeed, while the other might be followed in a south-easterly direction, far as the eye could reach. Mark named the rock at the junction 'Point Fork,' and chose the latter passage, which appeared the most promising, and the wind permitting him to lay through it. The Bridget tacked in the Forks, therefore, and stood away to the south-east, pretty close to the wind. Various other channels communicated with this main passage, or the Hope; and, about noon, Mark tacked into one of them, heading about north-east, when trimmed up sharp to do so. The water was deep, and at first the passage was half a mile in width; but after standing along it for a mile or two, it seemed all at once to terminate in an oval basin, that might have been a mile in its largest diameter, and which was bounded to the eastward by a belt of rock that rose some twenty feet above the water. The bottom of this basin was a clear beautiful sand, and its depth of water, on sounding, Mark found was uniformly about eight fathoms. A more safe or convenient basin for the anchorage of ships could not have been formed by the art of man, had there been an entrance to it, and any inducement for them to come there.

Mark had beaten about 'Oval Harbour,' as he named the place, for half an hour, before he was struck by the circumstance that the even character of its surface appeared to be a little disturbed by a slight undulation which seemed to come from its north-eastern extremity. Tacking the Bridget, he stood in that direction, and on reaching the place, found that there was a passage through the rock of about a hundred yards in width. The wind permitting, the boat shot through this passage, and was immediately heaving and setting in the long swells of the open ocean. At first Mark was startled by the roar of the waves that plunged into the caverns of the rocks, and trembled lest his boat might be hove up against that hard and iron-bound coast, where one toss would shatter his little craft into splinters. Too steady a seaman, however, to abandon his object unnecessarily, he stood on, and soon found he could weather the rocks under his lee, tacking in time. After two or three short stretches were made, Mark found himself half a mile to windward of a long line, or coast, of dark rock, that rose from twenty to twenty-five feet above the level of the water, and beyond all question in the open ocean. He hove-to to sound, and let forty fathoms of line out without reaching bottom. But everywhere to leeward of him was land, or rock; while everywhere to windward, as well as ahead and astern, it was clear water. This, then, was the eastern limit of the old shoals, now converted into dry land. Here the Rancocus had, unknown to her officers, first run into the midst of these shoals, by which she had ever since been environed.

It was not easy to compute the precise distance from the outlet or inlet of Oval Harbour, to the crater. Mark thought it might be five-and-twenty miles, in a straight line, judging equally by the eye, and the time he had been in running it. The Summit was not to be seen, however, any more than the masts of the ship; though the distant Peak, and the column of dark smoke, remained in sight, as eternal land-marks. The young man might have been an hour in the open sea, gradually hauling off the land, in order to keep clear of the coast, when he bethought him of returning. It required a good deal of nerve to run in towards those rocks, under all the circumstances of the case. The wind blew fresh, so much indeed as to induce Mark to reef, but there must always be a heavy swell rolling in upon that iron-bound shore. The shock of such waves expending their whole force on perpendicular rocks may be imagined better than it can be described. There was an undying roar all along that coast, produced by these incessant collisions of the elements; and occasionally, when a sea entered a cavern, in a way suddenly to expel its air, the sound resembled that which some huge animal might be supposed to utter in its agony, or its anger. Of course, the spray was flying high, and the entire line of black rocks was white with its particles.

Mark had unwittingly omitted to take any land-marks to his inlet, or strait.