It was a proof that the Neshamony was well modelled, that she began to draw ahead as soon as the wind took her fairly on her broadside, when Betts shifted the helm, and the pinnace fell slowly off.  When she had got nearly before the wind, she came up and rolled to-windward like a ship, and Mark scarce breathed as he saw her plunging down upon the reefs, like a frantic steed that knows not whither he is rushing in his terror.  From the elevated position he occupied, Mark could see the ocean as far as the spray, which filled the atmosphere, would allow of anything being seen at all.  Places which were usually white with the foam of breakers, could not now be distinguished from any of the raging cauldron around them, and it was evident that Bob must run at hazard.  Twenty times did Mark expect to see the pinnace disappear in the foaming waves, as it drove furiously onward; but, in each instance, the light and buoyant boat came up from cavities where our young man fancied it must be dashed to pieces, scudding away to leeward like the sea-fowl that makes its flight with wings nearly dipping.  Mark now began to hope that his friend might pass over the many reefs that lay in his track, and gain the open water to leeward.  The rise in the ocean favoured such an expectation, and no doubt was the reason why the Neshamony was not dashed to pieces within the first five minutes after she was washed off her ways.  Once to leeward of the vast shoals that surrounded the crater, there was the probability of Bob’s finding smoother water, and the chance of his riding out the tempest by bringing his little sloop up head to sea.  The water through which the boat was then running was more like a cauldron, bubbling and boiling under some intense heat produced by subterranean fires, than the regular, rolling billows of the ocean when piled up by gales.  Under the lee of the shoals this cauldron would disappear, while the mountain waves of the open ocean could not rise until a certain distance from the shallow water enabled them to ’get up,’ as sailors express it.  Mark saw the Neshamony for about a quarter of an hour after she was adrift, though long before the expiration of even that brief period she was invisible for many moments at a time, in consequence of the distance, her want of sail, her lowness in the water, and the troubled state of the element through which she was driving.  The last look he got of her was at an instant when the spray was filling the atmosphere like a passing cloud; when it had driven away, the boat could no longer be seen!

Here was a sudden and a most unexpected change for the worse in the situation of Mark Woolston!  Not only had he lost the means of getting off the island, but he had lost his friend and companion.  It was true, Bob was a rough and an uncultivated associate; but he was honest as human frailty could leave a human being, true as steel in his attachments, strong in body, and of great professional skill.  So great,