He had hoped she would go aground in the shallow waters off the sandy beach, but there was now no chance that such a piece of good fortune was in store for her.

She was going straight for the huge black rocks.
The boat's crew rowed in for observations.

Even before they returned to report, the anxious officers on board the vessel had made out a narrow fissure in the rocky coast line.

They assumed that it was the mouth of a small river.

The Second Engineer brought back the astonishing information that this opening in the coast was the gateway to a channel that in his judgment split the island into two distinct sections.