The captain called out to
me, from time to time, to be active and vigilant, as our set inshore
was uncontrollable, and the boats, if in the water, as the launch
could not be for twenty minutes, would be altogether useless. I
proposed to lower the yawl, and to pull to leeward, to try the
soundings, in order to ascertain if it were not possible to find
bottom at some point short of the reef, on which we should hopelessly
be set, unless checked by some such means, in the course of the next
fifteen or twenty minutes.
"Do it at once, sir," cried Marble. "The thought is a good one, and
does you credit, Mr. Wallingford."
I left the ship in less than five minutes, and pulled off, under the
ship's lee-bow, knowing that tacking or waring would be out of the
question, under the circumstances. I stood up in the stern-sheets, and
made constant casts with the hand-lead, with a short line, however, as
the boat went foaming through the water. The reef was now plainly in
sight, and I could see, as well as hear, the long, formidable
ground-swells of the Pacific, while fetching up against these solid
barriers, they rolled over, broke, and went beyond the rocks in angry
froth. At this perilous instant, when I would not have given the
poorest acre of Clawbonny to have been the owner of the Crisis, I saw
a spot to leeward that was comparatively still, or in which the water
did not break.
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