Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than that which surrounded us.

It was the head of the island.

We were closing right down upon it.

We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest impulse to do SOMETHING, anything, to save the vessel.

But still Mr.
Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.
'She'll not make it!' somebody whispered.
The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was down to-- 'Eight-and-a-half!....