the devil had risen before me, was the body of a ship leaning on
its bilge, at not more than a gunshot from where I stood, looking
toward the interior. When my eyes first went to the thing I could
not believe them. I imagined it some trick of the volcanic explosion
that had fashioned a portion of the land or rock (as it may be
called) into the likeness of a ship, but, on gazing steadfastly, I
saw that it was indeed a vessel, rendered extraordinarily beautiful
and wonderful by being densely covered with shells of a hundred
different kinds, by which her bulk was enlarged, though her shape
was preserved. Bright fountains of water were gushing from fifty
places in her, all these waterfalls shone like rainbows, and showed
surprisingly soft and lovely against the velvet green of the moss
and the gray and kaleidoscopic tints of the shells upon her. Lost
in amazement, I made my way toward her, and stood viewing her at
a short distance. She had three lower masts standing--one right
in the bows, and the mizzen raking very much aft. All three masts
were supported by shrouds, and that was all the rigging the sea
had left. She looked to be made of shells and moss; her shrouds and
masts were incrusted as thickly as her hull. She was a mere tub of
a ship in shape, being scarce twice as long as she was broad, with
great fat buttocks, a very tall stern narrowing atop, and low bows
with a prodigious curve to the stem-head. I am not well versed in
the shipping of olden times, but I would have willingly staked all
I was worth in the world that the fabric before me belonged to a
period not much later than the days of Columbus, and that she had
been sunk at least three centuries below the sea; and it was also
perfectly clear to me that she had risen in the daylight, out of
her green and oozy sepulchre, with the upheaval of the bed on which
she lay to the convulsion that had produced this island.