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We lost footing twice; but a mass of tangled timber above broke the current nowhere very strong and the water shoaled quickly under the further shore; the bottom was sound, too, just there, though the bank was steep; and Falcon answered a sharp drive of the spurs with a gallant spring, that landed him on a narrow shelf of slippery clay, hedged in on three sides by brush absolutely impenetrable.
As the breeze freshened, and the French ship had the first of it; she rapidly gained upon us, and in an hour and a half was about three miles from us. We had now shoaled our water to three fathoms and a half, which was quite near enough to the ground, as it left but four feet between our keel and the bottom; the studding-sails were taken in, and we ranged the cable.
Away they went, close in with the shore, just as a herd of oxen run along a hedge looking for an opening into which to escape. At length the water shoaled so much that the frigate had to haul off.
There is a small anchorage on the west side, but we did not visit it. There are no dangers near these small islands that may not be guarded against. Our survey extended only to their size and situation, as I deemed it my duty to devote all the remainder of the time I had to spare to the Balabac Straits. At midnight, the water shoaled to twenty fathoms, when I dropped the anchor until daylight.
On the northern side of the inlet the water shoaled gradually, terminating on a beach of clean yellow sand, which again stretched for some distance above water mark, and was then lost among the bush foliage.
We could not go straight at it, but had to travel all the way around it, sixteen miles from shore, because it is fenced with an invisible coral reef. At last we sighted buoys, bobbing here and there, and then we glided into a narrow channel among them, "raised the reef," and came upon shoaling blue water that soon further shoaled into pale green, with a surface scarcely rippled.
They had not got far before the water shoaled. The gunboats drew upwards of seven feet, the junks less than three. One after the other the gunboats grounded. "On, lads, on!" cried the commodore, leaping into one of the boats towing astern; "never mind the vessels."
The work was done silently, but orderly and steadily. In the meantime we had shoaled to eight fathoms, and it was now nearly three o'clock; but as it was summer time, the days were long. Indeed, when the weather was fine, there was little or no night, and the weather was warm, which was all in our favour.
Now we had reached the foot of the cyclopean stairs, now we were half up them and now as we struggled out upon the ledge on which the watching fortress stood, the clutching stream shoaled swiftly, the shoal became safe, dry land and the cheated, unseen maelstrom swirled harmlessly beneath us.
As the ballast went overboard we watched the bottom anxiously; the water shoaled rapidly, and the grating of the keel over the coral, with that peculiar tremor most unpleasant to a seaman under any circumstances, told us our danger. As the last of the ballast went overboard she forged ahead, and then brought up.
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