“Wait a few minutes, sir, till we get a bit more day,” answered his companion.  “There is a look on the water, about a league off here on the larboard quarter, that seems as if something would come out of it.  But, one thing can be seen plain enough, Mr. Mark, and that’s the breakers.  There’s a precious line on ’em, and that too one within another, as makes it wonderful how we ever got through ’em as well as we did!”

This was true enough, the light on the ocean to windward being now sufficient to enable the men to see, in that direction, to a considerable distance.  It was that solemn hour in the morning when objects first grow distinct, ere they are touched with the direct rays from the sun, and when everything appears as if coming to us fresh and renovated from the hands of the Creator.  The sea had so far gone down as to render the breakers much less formidable to the eye, than when it was blowing more heavily; but this very circumstance made it impossible to mistake their positions.  In the actual state of the ocean, it was certain that wherever water broke, there must be rocks or shoals beneath; whereas, in a blow, the combing of an ordinary sea might be mistaken for the white water of some hidden danger.  Many of the rocks, however, lay so low, that the heavy, sluggish rollers that came undulating along, scarce did more than show faint, feathery lines of white, to indicate the character of the places across which they were passing.  Such was now the case with the reef over which the ship had beaten, the position of which could hardly have been ascertained, or its danger discovered, at the distance of half a mile.  Others again were of a very different character, the water still tumbling about them like so many little cataracts.  This variety was owing to the greater depth at which some of the rocks lay than others.

As to the number of the reefs, and the difficulty in getting through them, Bob was right enough.  It often happens that there is an inner and an outer reef to the islands of the Pacific, particularly to those of coral formation; but Mark began to doubt whether there was any coral at all in the place where the Rancocus lay, in consequence of the entire want of regularity in the position of these very breakers.  They were visible in all directions; not in continuous lines, but in detached parts; one lying within another, as Bob had expressed it, until the eye could not reach their outer limits.  How the ship had got so completely involved within their dangerous embraces, without going to pieces on a dozen of the reefs, was to him matter of wonder; though it sometimes happens at sea, that dangers are thus safely passed in darkness and fog, that no man would be bold enough to encounter in broad daylight, and with a full consciousness of their hazards.  Such then had been the sort of miracle by which the Rancocus had escaped; though it was no more easy to see how she was to be got out of her present position, than it was to see how she had got into it.  Bob was the first to make a remark on this particular part of the subject.