THE REEF.

"That is good news," I remarked, when Saunders had completed his report;

"for, short-handed though we are, I think it may be possible for us to

get the ship afloat again. Then if, as you, Gurney, have suggested,

there happens to be a channel carrying depth enough to float us, we may

yet hope to find our way into open water once more. Let us pray,

however, that the channel--if such exists--does not trend to windward,

unless, of course, it happens to be wide enough to work the ship in.

And now, I think our first job must be to clew up and furl our canvas,

otherwise, when the breeze comes--as come it may at any moment--we shall

drive ashore in grim earnest, and perhaps never get afloat again."

My two companions fully agreed with me; and accordingly, the halyards

having already been let go, and the yards lowered to the caps, we let go

the sheets and manned the clewlines and buntlines, first of the main and

then of the fore topsail. Then we let go the fore topmast staysail

halyards and hauled down the sail; finally laying out and securing it

before going aloft to furl the topsails, which we tackled one at a time.

The next thing to be thought about was how to provide for the safety of

the ship when the breeze should come again, as come it soon must. As

the ship then lay she was heading almost exactly due east; and if the

wind should happen to come away out from that quarter--which seemed to

be its prevailing direction thereabout--I thought it not improbable that

we might blow off the mudbank and go ashore again on the lee side of the

lake, quite possibly in a very much worse position than that which we

then occupied. Gurney and Saunders were quite of my opinion; and after

talking the matter over for a while, we decided to get the stream anchor

over the bows, in place of the one left behind at the island, bend a

hawser to it, and have it all ready to let go at any moment. This we

did without any difficulty, the anchor in question being of a weight not

too great for the three of us to handle.

By the time that this job was ended the first signs of the coming dawn

began to show themselves away to the eastward, and with one consent

Gurney, Saunders, and I sprang into the main rigging and made our way

aloft to the crosstrees, with the purpose of taking a good look round at

our surroundings. In those low latitudes the day comes quickly, and we

had not occupied our lofty perch many minutes when up leapt the sun,

flashing his golden beams over the dark expanse spread out around us,

and we saw, to our dismay, that we occupied a small basin--one of many

such--situated almost in the exact centre of a vast reef, stretching

over a distance which we roughly estimated at thirty miles from north to

south, and perhaps twenty miles from east to west. The salt water that

had been hove up with the reef had by this time all run off, leaving the

dark, weed-covered rock fully exposed to view. Here and there, of

course, owing to the exceeding roughness and irregularity of the

surface, were scattered numerous pools, some small, and others of

considerable extent, which must obviously soon evaporate and disappear

under the influence of the sun's beams; and the disagreeable possibility

suggested itself to us all that the pool in which the _Mercury_ floated

might share the same fate. But we hoped not, for there were at least

three channels, wide enough to permit the passage of the ship, leading

out of our basin, stretching away across the reef, and joining other

channels, until the labyrinth became too intricate for the eye to

follow, and we trusted that one or more of these might lead to the open

ocean.

While we still remained aloft, discussing our situation and the best

means of extricating ourselves from it, a light air from the eastward

arose, redolent of the mingled odours of mud and seaweed; and as a wind

from this direction, if it would but come strong enough, might greatly

assist our efforts to get the ship off the mudbank upon which she was

partially grounded, we decided that we would at once try the effect of

setting the main topsail and throwing it aback; so while Gurney and

Saunders proceeded with this work, I looked about me for a suitable

berth in which to moor the ship, in the event of our efforts to refloat

her being crowned with success. At the height of the main topmast

crosstrees it was easy for me to discern pretty clearly the character of

the bottom of the basin in which we lay, and as the light increased I

discovered that the mudbank which held the ship was only of very small

extent, the remaining portion of the bottom being sandy, apparently of

almost uniform depth below the surface of the water, and affording

excellent holding ground. There was one place, however, some two

hundred fathoms to the southward of the spot where the ship then lay,

which seemed to be a trifle deeper than elsewhere, and I at once

determined that, if we could by any means clear ourselves of the mud, I

would anchor there.

By the time that I had thus decided, the other two had cast off the

gaskets from the main topsail. I therefore slid down on deck by way of

the topgallant backstay, and cast off the clewlines and buntlines that

Saunders might overhaul them prior to coming down from aloft, and then

manned the sheets, which, of course, came home easily enough, except for

the last few inches, upon which I required the help of Gurney and

Saunders. Then, having squared the main and topsail yard, we got the

halyard to the winch, with the aid of a snatch-block, and hoisted the

sail, flat aback. Gurney then went forward and loosed the fore topmast

staysail ready for setting in case of need, while Saunders got the hand

lead and dropped it over the side, in order that we might be able at

once to detect any movement on the part of the ship.

The wind meanwhile had freshened perceptibly, and was now blowing a ten-

knot breeze, the effect of which soon became perceptible, for the lead-

line had not been overboard five minutes when Saunders cried out that

the ship was moving. At the same moment I distinctly felt a slight

tremor in the hull, followed by a barely perceptible jerk, then another,

another, and another, and she was once more afloat and driving astern.

I at once sprang to the wheel, and put it hard a-starboard, at the same

time shouting to Gurney and Saunders to hoist the fore topmost staysail.

Then, leaving the wheel to take care of itself, I sprang to the main

braces, throwing the port main and topsail braces off their pins, and

rounding in on the starboard as well as I could unaided. The ship had

now paid off on the port tack; and as soon as the starboard fore topmast

staysail sheet was hauled aft, she began to forge ahead, whereupon I

rushed back to the wheel, steadied it, and called to Gurney to stand by

to let go the stream anchor, and to Saunders to take a cast of the lead.

The first cast gave us a bare four fathoms; the next, a trifle over

four fathoms; the next, four and a half fathoms; and the next, five

fathoms; whereupon I gave the word to let go the anchor and haul down

the staysail, at the same time abandoning the wheel and springing to the

main topsail halyard, which I let run. By the time that we had once

more furled our canvas, breakfast was ready, and we all sat down to it

with excellent appetites.

Having breakfasted, Gurney and I again betook ourselves aloft to the

main topmast crosstrees, carrying the ship's telescope with us, our

object being to subject the reef to a thorough scrutiny, in the hope

that, with the sun now high in the heavens, and the light as good as it

was likely to be, we might be fortunate enough to discover a way of

escape from our extraordinary prison.

As a matter of fact we did now get a much clearer and, on the whole,

more satisfactory view of the reef than upon the previous occasion; but

although we perceived a perfect network of channels--some so narrow as

scarcely to permit the passage of a boat, while others were wide enough

in places actually to allow a ship to work to windward in them--the

inequalities in the surface of the reef were so great as to render it

impossible for us to trace any of them for more than three or four miles

at the utmost. There were four channels, wide enough to allow the

passage of the ship, branching out from the basin in which we lay, one

trending toward the north-east; another running off toward the north-

west, and then, apparently, by a zigzag course ultimately leading to

open water on the west side of the reef; a third running west out of the

basin for a distance of about three miles, beyond which its farther

course became untraceable; and a fourth, broad on our starboard bow,

which looked the most promising of all. We counted seven pools, or

lakelets, in addition and similar to our own--three to the northward,

one to the eastward, two to the southward, and one to the south-westward

of our own; but the one in which the _Mercury_ floated seemed to be the

largest of them all. The reef appeared to be composed wholly of rock,

covered for the most part with weed, but with broad expanses of sand

here and there, interspersed with mud banks; and its height above the

ocean level seemed to vary from about a foot to ten or fifteen feet,

with occasional isolated hummocks, rising perhaps as high in some cases

as forty feet. With the aid of the telescope we were able to perceive

that considerable quantities of fish had been stranded and left to

perish by the sudden upheaval, and the appearance of them caused me a

slight spasm of alarm on the score of our health, which was only

partially dissipated by the fact, to which Gurney directed my attention,

that already great flocks of sea birds had appeared and were busily

devouring them.

We remained aloft for more than an hour, studying the reef and, so far

as I was concerned, making copious notes and a rough sketch map of it in

my notebook, and then descended to the deck, having come to the

conclusion that the only thing to be done was to make a systematic

exploration of the reef, and especially of the channels, by means of one

of the boats.

For this purpose we selected the larger of the two quarter boats, a very

handsomely modelled craft of twenty-six feet long by six feet beam, with

a keel nearly eight inches deep in midships, and rigged as a fore-and-

aft schooner. She had been the late captain's fancy boat, used by him

for sailing ashore from open roadsteads, and was fitted with air-

chambers forward and aft and under each of the thwarts, thus being

converted into a sort of unsinkable lifeboat. She was therefore in

every respect eminently suitable for the duty upon which we proposed to

employ her.

I was rather afraid that, upon learning our purpose, Grace Hartley might

express a desire to accompany us; and this would be somewhat awkward, in

view of the rough work which might possibly lie before us; but to my

relief she expressed herself as perfectly content to remain aboard

alone, upon being assured that no harm could possibly happen to the

ship. We therefore bent the ensign on to the main signal halyards,

showed her how to hoist it, and directed her to run it up to the main

truck in the event of anything occurring to render our immediate return

to the ship necessary. Then, having hastily stowed away a few biscuits

and a piece of cold salt beef in the boat's stern locker, and placed a

small breaker of fresh water in her for ballast, we lowered her to the

water, brought her to the gangway, rigged her, and got away about six

bells in the forenoon watch, Grace waving her farewells to us from the

poop.

We decided to begin our exploration by examining the channel which

opened on the south side of the basin, as that was the widest and the

most promising of the four. Accordingly, upon leaving the ship, we

brought the boat close to the wind on the port tack--which just enabled

her to point fair for the mouth of the channel--and at once proceeded to

take soundings. But we had not been under way five minutes before we

found that, under whole canvas, the boat travelled much too fast to

enable us to sound with the frequency and accuracy that I considered

necessary; we were consequently obliged to take in the foresail

altogether, and sail the boat under the single-reefed mainsail and jib,

at least during the outward journey.

Within ten minutes of leaving the ship we glided into the channel which

it was our intention to explore, and found ourselves slipping along a

waterway ranging from two hundred to a thousand feet in width, with an

average depth of about five fathoms. The sides of the channel were very

rough and irregular, its direction was also exceedingly erratic, varying

from east-south-east to south by west. This irregularity of direction

was the worst feature of the channel; for, with the prevailing direction

of the wind at about due east, there were stretches of the channel

looking so close into the wind's eye that the ship could never be sailed

through them. True, some of these stretches were so short that Gurney

believed the _Mercury_ could be carried through them by making a half-

board; but this would be a somewhat hazardous experiment, unless the

wind chanced to veer a point or two in our favour, while, even then,

there were other stretches that could only be traversed by kedging.

But, apart from this disadvantage, there was nothing to find fault with,

the channel being everywhere wide enough to permit the passage of the

ship, and the depth in it never less than twenty feet, with a fine sandy

bottom.

We traversed this channel for a distance of about nine miles, during

which the general trend of it might be said to be south-east, and then

we arrived at a point where it not only widened out, but also abruptly

took a south-south-west direction, to our great delight. For if the

ship could by any means be coaxed as far as this, she could then proceed

with a free wind. But, alas for our hopes, we had not traversed more

than another mile and a half before we found ourselves in a cul-de-sac,

the channel coming to an abrupt end.

This was a very severe disappointment to us, for after travelling so

far, and meeting with so few difficulties, we were already beginning to

congratulate ourselves upon having found a way of escape at the first

attempt. However, there was no use in worrying about it, the only thing

to be done was to retrace our steps and try one of the other channels.

It must not be supposed that the channel which we had thus traversed to

its extremity was unbroken; on the contrary, there were several other

channels branching out of it to right and left at various points in its

length, two of which at least--one about three miles back, and another

five miles back--had struck us as not altogether unpromising, and our

idea was now to return and examine these. But before starting upon our

return journey Gurney made a suggestion that was destined to exercise an

extraordinary influence upon our future. As we lay hove-to in the cul-

de-sac, discussing the question of what should next be done, our

attention had been more than once attracted toward a large hummock of

rock rising some thirty or forty feet above the general level of the

reef, at no great distance from the margin of the channel; and Gurney's

proposal was that, before attempting anything else, we should land, make

our way to the hummock, climb it, and ascertain whether any observations

of value were to be made from its summit. The proposal had so much to

commend it that it was agreed to forthwith. Laying the boat alongside

the rock at a convenient spot, we all three landed, and set out to walk

across the reef. The hummock in question was only some two hundred

yards from the margin of the channel; we therefore soon reached it,

despite the difficulty of the going, the surface of the reef proving to

be exceedingly rough, and covered for the most part with weed so

terribly slippery that it was positively dangerous to attempt to walk

upon it. When at length we reached the summit of the rock we were not

much better off; for although we could see from thence a great deal more

of the reef than was to be observed from the boat, we made no

discoveries that were likely to facilitate our escape.

But while we stood upon the summit of this rock, staring about us, our

attention was arrested by the sight of a great brown patch, some three

or four acres in extent, showing up strongly against the dull black of

the otherwise weed-covered rock. Although it obviously had nothing to

do with channels, or extricating the ship from her extraordinary

situation, our curiosity was aroused, and we determined to pay it a

visit and ascertain its character before returning to the boat. It lay

some three hundred yards to the south of the hummock, and we saw that,

upon returning from it to the boat, we should only need to pass close to

the eastward of the hummock to hit off the correct trail.

Accordingly we descended to the surface of the reef, and headed for the

mysterious brown patch, which we soon reached, some suspicion of its

true character having dawned upon us, even before we arrived at the

spot, from the circumstance that, as we approached, our nostrils became

cognisant of a "most ancient and fish-like smell". The suspicion that

we had formed was confirmed upon our arrival by the discovery that the

object of our curiosity was a great bed of oysters, hove up and exposed

to the air by the convulsion of the previous night. But, fond as I am

of oysters, I did not care to tackle any of these; for, apart from the

fact that many of them were already dead, I did not altogether like the

appearance of them. They were very much larger than the ordinary edible

oyster; and to my mind they did not look quite wholesome. Saunders,

however, was far less fastidious than either Gurney or me; he found one

or two that, being immersed in a shallow pool of salt water, were still

alive, and announced his intention of trying them. Accordingly,

producing a strong clasp knife, he contrived, with some difficulty, to

open one; and no sooner had he forced the shells apart than I guessed

that we had all stumbled upon a fortune, in extent probably "beyond the

dreams of avarice!" For as the shells parted, exposing the fish, three

or four small bead-like objects became revealed, that I instantly

recognised as pearls. The oysters were undoubtedly pearl oysters; and

the millions of shells that lay at our feet doubtless contained gems

enough to make us all rich for the remainder of our days!

Not to be behindhand with Saunders, I seized one of the bivalves,

already dead and with the shells gaping apart, and tore it open; but

although the shell was lined with beautiful lustrous mother-o'-pearl, it

was barren of gems. Flinging this away, I tried another, and a third

and fourth, with a like result; a fifth yielded nine small pearls about

the size of duck shot; numbers six and seven proved barren; but the

eighth surrendered to my eager grasp a magnificent pearl, perfectly

globular, quite half an inch in diameter, and, when cleaned, of

exquisite lustre and colour. Gurney and Saunders meanwhile had been as

busily engaged as myself, and between them had secured three more gems

not quite so large as mine, and about as much seed pearl as would half

fill an ordinary wineglass. One of the three smaller pearls, however--

secured by Gurney--amply made up in beauty what it lacked in size, for

it was of a most exquisitely delicate yet rich rose colour.

"My friends," said I, as soon as I was able to collect my scattered

senses and speak intelligibly, "it is said that the darkest cloud has a

silver lining, and the extraordinary accident by which we have become

imprisoned in the meshes of this reef--let us hope only temporarily--has

at the same time presented us with a treasure of incalculable value. I

think we should be almost criminally negligent if we failed to make the

utmost of our marvellous good fortune, and I therefore propose that,

before we proceed further with the exploration of the reef, we take

steps to secure the wealth that lies spread so lavishly at our feet.

Let us take these oysters and spread them--or at least a portion of

them--in rows, so that the sun may get at them and speedily bring about

that state of decomposition which I understand is necessary to enable

the gems they contain to be secured uninjured. And I further propose

that, whatever be the value of the wealth we may ultimately secure, it

be equally divided between all four of us; for it would be manifestly

unfair that Miss Hartley should not equally participate in our good as

in our ill fortune. What say you?"

My companions cheerfully agreed with my proposal, and, this point

settled, we forthwith proceeded to collect the oysters indiscriminately

from the enormous heap and lay them out singly upon the seaweed in long

rows, taking care to place each bivalve quite flat, in order that, as

the process of decomposition proceeded, the precious contents should not

roll out and be lost. So absorbed were we in our occupation that we did

not desist until the sun hung upon the very verge of the western

horizon, by which time we had placed in position very nearly three

thousand oysters. And not until then did we find time to remember that

we had eaten nothing since leaving the ship!

Then, returning to the boat, we cleansed our hands in the water

alongside, shook out our reef, set all our canvas, and headed the boat

back to the ship, snatching a hasty meal as we went.