OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 43 slighted. With a slow step, therefore, and a heavy heart, Mark went into the cabin to make his report, and to give the second-mate the customary call. It was not an easy matter to awaken either of those, who slept under the influence of potations as deep as the night-caps taken by Captain Crutchely and Mr. Hillson. The latter, in particular, was like a man in a state of le thargy, and Mark had half a mind to leave him, and make his condition an excuse for not having persisted in the call. But he succeeded in arousing the captain, who soon found the means to bring the second-mate to a state of semi-consciousness. " Well, sir," cried the captain, as soon as fairly awake himself, "what now?" " I think I heard breakers abeam, sir, and I have hauled up to the southward." A grunt succeeded, which Mark scarce knew how to interpret. It might mean dissatisfaction, or it might mean surprise. As the captain, however, was thoroughly awake, and was making his preparations to come out on deck, he thought that he had done all that duty required, and he returned to his own post. The after-part of the ship was now the best situation for watching, and Mark went up on the poop, in order to see and hear the better. No lower sail being in the way, he could look ahead almost as well from that position as if he were forward ; and as for hear ing, it was much the best place of the two, in consequence of there being no wash of the sea directly beneath him, as was the case when stationed between the knight-heads. To this post he soon summoned Bob Betts, who belonged to his watch, and with whom he had ever kept up as great an intimacy as the difference in their stations would allow. " Bob, your ears are almost as good as your eyes," said Mark ; " have you heard nothing of breakers?" " I have, Mr. Woolston, and now own I did see some thing that may have been white water, this arternoon, while aloft; but the captain and second-mate seemed so awarse to believing in sich a thing, out here in the open Pacific, that I got to be awarse, too." " It was a great fault in a look-out not to let what he had scsn be known," said Mark, gravely.
