Mulford glanced past the rocks and shoals, attended by the whole company of the sharks.  They moved before, behind, and on each side of him, as if unwilling to abandon their prey, even after he had got beyond the limits of their power to do him harm.  It was not an easy thing to manage the boat in that narrow and crooked channel, with no other guide for the courses than the eye, and it required so much of the mate’s vigilance to keep clear of the sharp angles of the rocks, that he could not once cast his eyes aside, to look for the fluttering shawl, which now composed the standing signal of the wreck.  At length the boat shot through the last passage of the reef, and issued into open water.  Mulford knew that he must come out half a mile at least to leeward of his object, and, without even raising his head, he flattened in the sheet, put his helm down, and luffed close to the wind.  Then, and then only, did he venture to look around him.

Our mate felt his heart leap toward his mouth, as he observed the present state of the wreck.  It was dead to windward of him, in the first place, and it seemed to be entirely submerged.  He saw the shawl fluttering as before; for Tier had fastened one corner to a button-hole of his own jacket, and another to the dress of Biddy, leaving the part which might be called the fly, to rise at moments almost perpendicularly in the air, in a way to render it visible at some distance.  He saw also the heads and the bodies of those on the schooner’s bottom, but to him they appeared to be standing in, or on, the water.  The distance may have contributed a little to this appearance, but no doubt remained that so much air had escaped from the hold of the vessel, as to permit it to sink altogether beneath the surface of the sea.  It was time, indeed, to proceed to the relief of the sufferers.

Notwithstanding the boat sailed particularly fast, and worked beautifully, it could not equal the impatience of Mulford to get on.  Passing away to the north-east a sufficient distance, as he thought, to weather on the wreck, the young man tacked at last, and had the happiness to see that every foot he proceeded was now in a direct line toward Rose.  It was only while tacking he perceived that all the fins had disappeared.  He felt little doubt that they had deserted him, in order to push for the wreck, which offered so much larger, and so much more attainable prey.  This increased his feverish desire to get on, the boat seeming to drag, in his eyes, at the very moment it was leaving a wake full of eddies and little whirlpools.  The wind was steady, but it seemed to Mulford that the boat was set to leeward of her course by a current, though this could hardly have been the case, as the wreck, the sole mark of his progress, would have had at least as great a drift as the boat.  At length Mulford—­to him it appeared to be an age; in truth it was after a run of about twenty minutes—­came near the goal he so earnestly sought, and got an accurate