“Ay, ay, sir—­could’ we get her out from among these reefs, indeed!  There’s the rub, Mr. Woolston; but I fear ’t will never be ’rub and go.’”

“You think, then, we are too fairly in for it, ever to get the ship clear?”

“Such is just my notion, Mr. Woolston, on that subject, and I’ve no wish to keep it a secret.  In my judgment, was poor Captain Crutchely alive and back at his post, and all hands just as they was this time twenty-four hours since, and the ship where she is now, that here she would have to stay.  Nothing short of kedging can ever take the wessel clear of the reefs to windward on us, and man-of-war kedging could hardly do it, then.”

“I am sorry to hear you say this,” answered Mark, gloomily, “though I feared as much myself.”

“Men is men, sir, and you can get no more out on ’em than is in ’em.  I looked well at these reefs, sir, when aloft, and they’re what I call as hopeless affairs as ever I laid eyes on.  If they lay in any sort of way, a body might have some little chance of getting through ’em, but they don’t lay, no how.  ’T would be ‘luff’ and ‘keep her away’ every half minute or so, should we attempt to beat up among ’em; and who is there aboard here to brace up, and haul aft, and ease off, and to swing yards sich as our’n?”

“I was not altogether without the hope, Bob, of getting the ship into clear water:  though I have thought it would be done with difficulty, I am still of opinion we had better try it, for the alternative is a very serious matter.”

“I don’t exactly understand what you mean by attorneytives, Mr. Mark; though it’s little harm, or little good that any attorney can do the old ’Cocus, now!  But, as for getting this craft through them reefs, to windward, and into clear water, it surpasses the power of man.  Did you just notice the tide-ripples, Mr. Mark, when you was up in the cross-trees?”

“I saw them, Bob, and am fully aware of the difficulty of running as large a vessel as this among them, even with a full crew.  But what will become of us, unless we get the ship into open water?”

“Sure enough, sir.  I see no other hope for us, Mr. Mark, but to Robinson Crusoe it awhile, until our times come; or, till the Lord, in his marcy, shall see fit to have us picked up.”

“Robinson Crusoe it!” repeated Mark, smiling at the quaintness of Bob’s expression, which the well-meaning fellow uttered in all simplicity, and in perfect good faith—­“where are we to find even an uninhabited island, on which to dwell after the mode of Robinson Crusoe?”

“There’s a bit of a reef to-leeward, where I dare say a man might pick up a living, arter a fashion,” answered Bob, coolly; “then, here is the ship.”

“And how long would a hempen cable hold the ship in a place like this, where every time the vessel lifts to a sea, the clench is chafing on a rock?  No, no, Bob—­the ship cannot long remain where she is, depend on that.  We must try and pass down to leeward, if we cannot beat the ship through the dangers to windward.”