“My mate was a Yorkshireman. His head fell on one side and he answered me not.
“‘Are her anchors down?’ I asked.
“‘Her anchors have been let go,’ he answered. ‘The starboard cable appears to have parted inboard. I saw nothing of it in the hawse-pipe. There are a few feet of her larboard cable hanging up and down.’
“‘Swing your topsail,’ said I. ‘She will lie quiet. There is nothing to be afraid of upon that island.’
“I then got into the boat, and my men pulled me to the mouth of the piers of reef.
“I was greatly impressed by the appearance of these reefs on approaching them. They looked like admirably wrought breakwaters, which had fallen into decay but were still extraordinarily strong, very rugged, imposing, and serviceable. The width of the entrance was about five hundred feet. The water was smooth as glass, clear as crystal, and when I looked over the side I could see here and there the cloudy sheen of the bottom, whether coral or not I do not know—I should say not. And now, right in front of me, was the great face of gloomy-looking cliff, and in the center the mighty rift, shaped like that,” said he, bringing the points of his two forefingers together and then separating his hands to the extent of the width of his two thumbs. “No doubt the wonderful cave was a volcanic rupture. The height of the entrance was, I reckoned, about two hundred feet, and the breadth of it at its base about fifty. It stood at the third of a mile from the mouth of the natural harbor. I could see but little of the ship until I was close to, so gloomy was the interior; but as the men rowed, features of the extraordinarily housed craft stole out, and presently we were lying upon our oars and I was viewing her, the whole picture clear to my gaze as an oil painting set in the frame of the cavern entrance.
“She was a lump of a vessel painted yellow, with a snake-like curl of cutwater at the head of the stem, and a great deal of gilt work about her headboards and figurehead. I knew her for a Spaniard the instant I had her fair. She had heavy channels and a wide spread of lower rigging. Her yards were across, but pointed as though she had ridden to a gale, and the canvas was clumsily furled as if rolled up hurriedly and in a time of confusion. But I need not tease you with a minute description of her,” said he. “It was easy to guess how it happened that she was in this amazing situation. Perfectly clear it was to me that she had sighted this island at night, or in dirty weather, when the land was too close aboard for a shift of the helm to send her clear. Once in the harbor her commander, in the teeth of a dead inshore wind, could not get out. What, then, was to be done? Here was a place of shelter in which he might ride until a shift of wind permitted him to proceed on his voyage. So, as I make the story run to my own satisfaction, he let go his anchor; but scarcely was this done when it came on to blow, the canvas was hastily furled to save the strain, but she dragged nevertheless. A second anchor was let go, and still she dragged—and why? Because, as a cast of the lead would have told the Spanish captain, the ground was as hard as rock and as smooth as marble, and there was nothing for the anchors to grip. Dragging with her head to sea and her stern at the cliff’s huge front, the ship floats foot by foot toward the cave, threading it with mathematical precision. The roof of the cave slants rearward, and as she drifts into the big hole her royal-mastheads graze and take the roof; the masts are crushed away at the crosstrees, otherwise all is well with the ship. She strands gently, and is steadied by her topmast heads pressing against the roof. Thus is she held in a vise of her own manufacture, and so she lies snug as live callipee and callipash in their top and bottom armor. That must be the solution, Fielding.”
“Did the water shoal rapidly in the cave?” said I.
“Yes; the ship lies cradled to her midship section; forward she may be afloat. But there she lies hard and fast for all that, motionless as the mass of rock in whose heart she sleeps.”
“You boarded her, I suppose?”