Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/179

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 173 Mark to reef, but there must always be a heavy swell roll ing in upon that iron-bound shore. The shock of such waves expending their whole force on perpendicular rocks may be imagined better than it can be described. There was an undying roar all along that coast, produced by these incessant collisions of the elements; and occasionally, when a sea entered a cavern, in a way suddenly to expel its air, the sound resembled that which some huge animal might be supposed to utter in its agony, or its anger. Of course, the spray was flying high, and the entire line of black rocks was white with its particles. Mark had unwittingly omitted to take any land-marks to his inlet, or strait. He had no other means of finding it, therefore, than to discover a spot in which the line of white was broken. This inlet, however, he remembered did not open at right angles to the coast, but obliquely ; and it was very possible to be within a hundred yards of it, and not see it. This fact our young sailor was not long in ascertaining; for standing in towards the point where he expected to find the entrance, and going as close to the shore as he dared, he could see nothing of the desired pas sage. For an hour did he search, passing to and fro, but without success. The idea of remaining out in the open sea for the night, and to windward of such an inhospitable coast, was anything but pleasant to Mark, and he deter mined to stand to the northward, now, while it was day, and look for some other entrance. For four hours did Mark Woolston run along those dark rocks, whitened only by the spray of the wide ocean, with out perceiving a point at which a boat might even land. As he was now running off the wind, and had turned out his reef, he supposed he must have gone at least five-and- twenty miles, if not thirty, in that time; and thus had he some means of judging of the extent of his new territorie-s. About five in the afternoon a cape, or headland, was reached, when the coast suddenly trended to the westward. This, then, was the north-eastern angle of the entire for mation, and Mark named it Cape JNorth-East. The boat was now jibed, and ran off west, a little northerly, for an other hour, keeping quite close in to the coast, which was no longer dangerous as soon as the Cape was doubled. 15*