The voyage to windward was a much more serious business than the run to leeward.  By Bob’s advice Mark reefed his mainsail, and took the bonnet off the jib.  Following the same instructions, he stood away to the southward, letting the boat go through the water freely, intending to tack when he came near the volcano, and not before.  This was what Bob himself had done, and that which had turned out so well with him, he fancied might succeed with his friend.  The Neshamony left Rancocus Island just at sunset.  Next morning Mark saw the smoke of the Volcano, and stood for it.  After making two stretches he came up within a league of this spot, when he tacked and stood to the northward and eastward, Vulcan’s Peak having been in plain view the entire day.  As respects the volcano, it was in a comparatively quiet state, though rumbling sounds were heard, and stones were cast into the air in considerable quantities, while the boat was nearest in.  One thing, moreover, Mark ascertained, which greatly increased his confidence in the permanency of the changes that had lately occurred in the physical formation of all that region.  He found himself in comparatively shoal water, when fully a league from this new crater.  Shoal in a seaman’s sense, though not in shallow water; the soundings being from fifteen to twenty fathoms, with a rocky bottom.

Between the volcano and Vulcan’s Peak it blew quite fresh, and Mark had a good occasion to ascertain the qualities of the pinnace.  A long, heavy swell came rolling through the passage, which was near sixty miles in width, seemingly with a sweep that extended to the Southern Ocean.  Notwithstanding all this, the little craft did wonders, struggling along in a way one would hardly have expected from so small a vessel.  She made fully two knots’ headway in the worst of it, and in general her rate of sailing, close on a wind and under pretty short canvas, was about three.  The night was very dark, and there was nothing to steer by but the wind, which gave some little embarrassment; but finding himself in much smoothe water than he had been all the previous day, about midnight, our young man felt satisfied that he was under the lee of the island, and at no great distance from it.  He made short tacks until daylight, when the huge mass hove up out of the departing darkness, within a mile of the boat.  It only remained to run along the land for two or three miles, and to enter the haven of Snug Cove.  Mark had been telling his companions what a secret place this haven was to conceal a vessel in, when he had a practical confirmation of the truth of his statement that caused him to be well laughed at.  For ten minutes he could not discover the entrance himself, having neglected to take the proper land-marks, that he might have no difficulty in running for his port.  After a time, however, he caught sight of an object that he remembered, and found his way into the cove.  Here lay the little namesake of his pretty wife, just as he had left her, the true Bridget smiling and blushing as the young husband pointed out the poor substitute he had been compelled to receive for herself, only ten days earlier.