It was not easy to compute the precise distance from the outlet or inlet of Oval Harbour, to the crater. Mark thought it might be five-and-twenty miles, in a straight line, judging equally by the eye, and the time he had been in running it. The Summit was not to be seen, however, any more than the masts of the ship; though the distant Peak, and the column of dark smoke, remained in sight, as eternal land-marks. The young man might have been an hour in the open sea, gradually hauling off the land, in order to keep clear of the coast, when he bethought him of returning. It required a good deal of nerve to run in towards those rocks, under all the circumstances of the case. The wind blew fresh, so much indeed as to induce Mark to reef, but there must always be a heavy swell rolling in upon that iron-bound shore. The shock of such waves expending their whole force on perpendicular rocks may be imagined better than it can be described. There was an undying roar all along that coast, produced by these incessant collisions of the elements; and occasionally, when a sea entered a cavern, in a way suddenly to expel its air, the sound resembled that which some huge animal might be supposed to utter in its agony, or its anger. Of course, the spray was flying high, and the entire line of black rocks was white with its particles.
Mark had unwittingly omitted to take any land-marks to his inlet, or strait. He had no other means of finding it, therefore, than to discover a spot in which the line of white was broken. This inlet, however, he remembered did not open at right angles to the coast, but obliquely; and it was very possible to be within a hundred yards of it, and not see it. This fact, our young sailor was not long in ascertaining; for standing in towards the point where he expected to find the entrance, and going as close to the shore as he dared, he could see nothing of the desired passage. For an hour did he search, passing to and fro, but without success. The idea of remaining out in the open sea for the night, and to windward of such an inhospitable coast, was anything but pleasant to Mark, and he determined to stand to the northward, now, while it was day, and look for some other entrance.