feet of the wall of the sunken reef, just as the ship began to drive
astern. The canvas was rolled up and secured, the cable payed out, until
the ship lay just mid-channel between the island and the sea-wall
without, and the whole secured. Then Bob took off his tarpaulin and gave
three cheers, while Mark walked aft, silently returning thanks to God
for the complete success of this important movement.

Important most truly was this change. Not only was the ship anchored,
with her heaviest anchor down, and her best cable out, in good holding
ground, and in a basin where very little swell ever penetrated, and that
entering laterally and diminished in force; but there she was within a
hundred and fifty feet of the island, at all times accessible by means
of the dingui, a boat that it would not do to trust in the water at all
outside when it blew in the least fresh. In short, it was scarcely
possible to have a vessel in a safer berth, so long as her spars and
hull were exposed to the gales of the ocean, or one that was more
convenient to those who used the island. By getting down her spars and
other hamper, the power of the winds would be much lessened, though Mark
felt little apprehension of the winds at that season of the year, so
long as the sea could not make a long rake against the vessel. He
believed the ship safe for the present, and felt the hope of still
finding a passage, through the reef to leeward, reviving in his breast.

Well might Mark and Bob rejoice in the great feat they had just
performed. That night it blew so heavily as to leave little doubt that
the ship never could have been kept at her anchor, outside; and had she
struck adrift in the darkness nothing could have saved them from almost
immediate destruction. The rollers came down in tremendous billows,
breaking and roaring on all sides of the island, rendering the sea white
with their foam, even at midnight; but, on reaching the massive, natural