single fragment of a reef, which was less than a mile in length, was the only thing that even resembled land, the melancholy conviction began to force itself on Mark and Bob, that all their shipmates had perished!  They might have perished in one of several ways; as the naked reef did not lie precisely to leeward of the ship, the boats may have driven by it, in the deep darkness of the past night, and gone far away out of sight of the spot where they had left the vessel, long ere the return of day.  There was just the possibility that the spars of the ship might be seen by the wanderers, if they were still living, and the faint hope of their regaining the vessel, in the course of the day, by means of their oars.  It was, however, more probable that the boats had capsized in some of the numerous fragments of breakers, that were visible even in the present calm condition of the ocean, and that all in them had been drowned.  The best swimmer must have hopelessly perished, in such a situation, and in such a night, unless carried by a providential interference to the naked rock to leeward.  That no one was living on that reef, the glass pretty plainly proved.

Mark and Bob Betts descended to the deck, after passing a long time aloft making their observations.  Both were pretty well assured that their situation was almost desperate, though each was too resolute, and too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of a seaman, to give up while there was the smallest shadow of hope.  As it was now getting past the usual breakfast hour, some cold meat was got out, and, for the first time since Mark had been transferred to the cabin, they sat down on the windlass and ate the meal together.  A little, however, satisfied men in their situation; Bob Betts fairly owning that he had no appetite, though so notorious at the ship’s beef and a biscuit, as to be often the subject of his messmates’ jokes.  That morning even he could eat but little, though both felt it to be a duty they owed to themselves to take enough to sustain nature.  It was while these two forlorn and desolate mariners sat there on the windlass, picking, as it might be, morsel by morsel, that they first entered into a full and frank communication with each other, touching the realities of their present situation.  After a good deal had passed between them, Mark suddenly asked—­

“Do you think it possible, Bob, for us two to take care of the ship, should we even manage to get her into deep water again?”

“Well, that is not so soon answered, Mr. Woolston,” returned Bob.  “We’re both on us stout, and healthy, and of good courage, Mr. Mark; but ’twould be a desperate long way for two hands to carry a wessel of four hundred tons, to take the old ’Cocus from this here anchorage, all the way to the coast of America; and short of the coast there’s no ra’al hope for us.  Howsever, sir, that is a subject that need give us no consarn.”

“I do not see that, Bob; we shall have to do it, unless we fall in with something at sea, could we only once get the vessel; out from among these reefs.”