to the kedges, three to each, and these parts were held at equal distances by pieces of spars ingeniously placed between them, the whole being kept in its place by regular stretchers that were lashed along the hawsers at distances of ten feet, giving all the parts of the ropes the same level.  Before these stretchers were secured, the ship was hove ahead by her cable, and the several parts of the hawser brought to an equal strain.  This left the vessel about a hundred feet from the island, a convenient, and if the anchor held, a safe position; though Mark felt little fear of losing the ship against rocks that were so perpendicular and smooth.  On the stretchers planks were next laid and lashed, thus making a clear passage between the vessel and the shore, that might be used at all times, without recourse to the dingui; besides mooring the ship head and stern, thereby keeping her always in the same place, and in the same position.

The business of securing the ship occupied nearly two days, and was not got through with until about the middle of the afternoon of the second day.  It was Saturday, and Mark had determined to make a good beginning, and keep all their Sabbaths, in future, as holy times, set apart for the special service of the Creator.  He had been born and educated an Episcopalian, but Bob claimed to be a Quaker, and what was more he was a little stiff in some of his notions on the opinion of his sect.  The part of New Jersey in which Betts was born, had many persons of this religious persuasion, and he was not only born, but, in one sense, educated in their midst; though the early age at which he went to sea had very much unsettled his practice, much the most material part of the tenets of these good persons.  When the two knocked off work, Saturday afternoon, therefore, it was with an understanding that the next day was to be one of rest in the sense of Christians, and, from that time henceforth, that the Sabbath was to be kept as a holy day.  Mark had ever been inclined to soberness of thought on such subjects.  His early engagement to Bridget had kept him from falling into the ways of most mariners, and, time and again, had a future state of being been the subject of discourse between him and his betrothed.  As the seasons of adversity are those in which men are the most apt to bethink them of their duties to God, it is not at all surprising that one of this disposition, thus situated, felt renewed demands on his gratitude and repentance.

While Mark, in this frame of mind, went rambling around his narrow domains, Bob got the dingui, and proceeded with his fishing-tackle towards some of the naked rocks, that lifted their caps above the surface of the sea, in a north-westerly direction from the crater.  Of these naked rocks there were nearly twenty, all within a mile of the crater, and the largest of them not containing more than six or eight acres of dry surface.  Some were less than a hundred feet in diameter.  The great extent and irregular formation of the reefs all around the island, kept the water smooth, for some distance, on all sides of it; and it was only when the rollers were sent in by heavy gales, that the dingui could not move about, in this its proper sphere, in safety.