Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/93

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 87 most secure hold, while the shanks came out through natural grooves, leading straight towards the ship. Six parts of a hawser were bent 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 se cured, 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 pas sage between the vessel and the shore, that might be used at all times, without recourse to the dingui ; besides moor ing 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 no tions on the opinion of his sect. The part of New Jersey in which Betts was born, had many persons of this reli gious 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 prac tice, 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 engage ment to Bridget had kept him from falling into the ways of most mariners, and, time and again, had a future state