"A heavy sea would cause the ship to drag," Captain Truck remarked,
"should it come on to blow, and the lines of dark rocks astern of them
would make chips of the Pennsylvania in an hour, were that great ship to
lie on it."
He entered the boat, and pulled along the reefs to examine an inlet that
Mr. Leach reported to have been seen, before he got the ship's head to the
northward. Could an entrance be found at this point, the vessel might
possibly be carried within the reef, and a favourite scheme of the
captain's could be put in force, one to which he now attached the highest
importance. A mile brought the boat up to the inlet, where Mr. Truck found
the following appearances: The general formation of the coast in sight was
that of a slight curvature, within which the ship had so far drifted as to
be materially inside a line drawn from headland to headland. There was,
consequently, little hope of urging a vessel, crippled like the Montauk,
against wind, sea and current, out again into the ocean. For about a
league abreast of the ship the coast was rocky, though low, the rocks
running off from the shore quite a mile in places, and every where fully
half that distance. The formation was irregular, but it had the general
character of a reef, the position of which was marked by breakers, as well
as by the black heads of rocks that here and there showed themselves above
the water.
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