ty yards going down.

"There, you see," said the captain.

"Bottom!" cried the mate, as the weight ceased and the line slackened.

"Two hundred and fifty yards," said the captain: "a hundred and
twenty-five fathoms."

"No," cried the mate excitedly, "it isn't bottom, it's a fish."

"Nonsense!"

"It is; I can feel him," cried the mate; and he hauled rapidly in, with
a heavy fish playing about till, just as it reached the surface and
displayed a hideous pair of jaws, it let go, and with a flounder
disappeared.

"Glad he was not hooked," said the mate, as Mark shrank away. "What a
brute!"

"Horrible!" exclaimed Mark, shivering, for the idea of being overboard
in such a black bottomless hole sent a chill through him. But they were
soon across, to find they could drag the boat over fifty yards of black
sand and launch her again in blue water, where all around was bright and
attractive; for though no large trees were growing near the shore, the
land was covered with a glorious vegetation, and looked attractive right
away to the slopes of the volcano, as soon as the crater bay, with its
lowering black basalt, was left a quarter of a mile behind.

"Now," said the captain, "how are we steering?"

"Nearly due south," said the mate, glancing at a pocket-compass.

"Then you are right, Gregory, and this is the nearest way home."

"If it is an island, father," said Mark, smiling.

"And that it must be, Mark, my lad, and a very small one, as we shall
see."

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

HOW THAT FISH MEANT MISCHIEF, AND BECAME MEAT.

Their way still led them along the peaceful waters which girt the
island--for so they now felt that they might venture to call it--the
strong barrier reef of coral keeping back the heaving swell of the
ocean, which foamed and broke outside, leaving the lagoon perfectly
calm, save here and there where they came across an opening in the reef
through which a fleet might apparently have sailed into fairly deep
anchorage, sheltered from the wildest storm and the roughest sea.

Here and there the reef was so far above water that vegetation had taken
root, and young cocoa-nut trees were springing up to form the beginning
of a grove, but for the most part there was the dead coral, the gleaming
sand, and the pearly foam glistening in the sun.

No currents to stay them, no rough winds to check. Their journey might
have been upon some peaceful lake, whose left-hand shore was one
succession of co