CHAPTER XIII.

LOST IN THE FOG.

For several days after that on which Hank Hoffer was rescued the wind blew steadily from the south, driving the ice-fields far back towards their northern home, but bringing in their place dense masses of the almost equally dreaded fog. Fog is the ever-present terror of the Banks, and hangs over them so constantly as to cause the remark to be frequently made that in this latitude three hundred and sixty-five days out of the year are foggy. Of course this is an exaggeration; but it is true that hardly a day passes that does not disclose a fog-bank rising above the horizon in one or another direction.

This stealthy enemy is ever lying in wait for the fisherman, and generally surprises him when he is least prepared for its coming. It swoops down and envelops him in its blinding folds when he is out in his dory, and when it again lifts, as though to mock him, he finds himself alone on the vast waters, with no vessel in sight. It steals his gear, and sends his craft drifting aimlessly hither and thither. Above all, it leads swift-rushing steamers to where the fishing schooners lie, and causes the great ships to spring upon them and crush them down beneath iron prows, never to rise again.

The fog is terrible; but whether it comes or whether it goes, the fish must be caught, for wives and children must be fed. So the dories go out from the vessels, and if they never return there are others to take their places. So accustomed does he become to its presence that the fisherman hardly gives the fog a thought, until in his turn it swallows him up, and he disappears forever.

The _Vixen_ was now beset by a fog, sometimes so dense that it settled down upon the water like a pall. Again it would lift, so that her crew were able to set and haul their trawls, with some hope of finding their vessel when the task was finished. It was dull, dispiriting work, and in the midst of it an amusing incident, of which Breeze McCloud was the hero, was hailed with delight by his shipmates.

One night they were lying at anchor. The fog had lifted to such an extent that it was not thought necessary to keep the fog-horn constantly blowing. About midnight Breeze was turned out of his bunk to go on watch. He had hardly reached the deck, and was still rubbing his eyes, when suddenly he caught sight of a dim light. It rose from the mist at about the height of a steamer’s mast-head light, and was apparently bearing directly down upon them amidships. He made one spring for the companion-way and another into the cabin, yelling at the top of his voice,

“Turn out all hands! Steamer close aboard!” and snatching up the fog-horn, he again rushed on deck, blowing it furiously as he went, and followed by the startled crew.

Breeze did not even glance at the dreaded light again, so intent was he upon getting all the sound he could from his fog-horn; but all at once such a roar of laughter burst forth behind him that he dropped the horn and turned indignantly to learn what it meant.

“Blow, sonny, blow!” cried one of the men between his shouts of merriment. “You’ll have to do better than that to make the man in the moon hear you.”

Then poor Breeze realized that what he had mistaken for a steamer’s light was indeed the dim and watery moon struggling to show itself through the upper edge of a fog-bank. There was nothing for him to say or do, except to bear as meekly as possible the jokes of his companions and the bursts of laughter with which they greeted him whenever they met him the next day.

The trawls were set as usual the following evening, for in spite of the fog the work of fishing was continued with considerable regularity, and the next morning dory No. 6 went out with the others in quest of its fare. It was customary in thick weather, while the dories were absent, to keep the fog-horn constantly sounding on board the schooner, so that they might be enabled to find her again.

On this occasion there was such a heavy sea running that unusual care was necessary in the management of the dory, and its crew were frequently obliged to swing her head to it to prevent her from capsizing. After considerable difficulty they discovered their buoy, and began to haul the trawl. In spite of the violent pitching of the boat they were conducting this operation successfully, and had nearly completed their task when, unnoticed by them, as their backs were turned to it, a larger wave than usual came rushing towards them.

It seemed to spring at the deeply laden dory, and lifted it so suddenly that Wolfe, who was leaning over the gunwale, was pitched head-foremost into the water. At the same instant Breeze, who had been standing up, was thrown violently backward against the opposite side of the boat, which was probably all that saved it from upsetting. As it was, she shipped a quantity of water, and this, in addition to the load of fish, sank her far below the limit of safety.

Her head, which had only been held to the wind by the trawl, now swung off, and as Wolfe rose to the surface and clutched the stern becket she had turned completely around, and was beginning to drift.

Quickly recovering himself, Breeze went to his companion’s assistance, and was endeavoring to help him into the boat, when Wolfe gave a sharp cry of pain, exclaiming,

“I’m caught in the trawl! One of the hooks is in my leg! It’s dragging me down! Oh, Breeze, help me!”

For an instant Breeze was horror-stricken; but his quick wit enabled him to understand the situation at once, and also suggested a remedy for it. Wolfe now formed the connecting link between the dory and the trawl, which alone prevented it from drifting off before the wind. The strain on his arms was so great, and the pain from the hook in his leg was so intense, that he could not keep his hold on the becket more than a minute longer. When he should once let go he would instantly be dragged down beneath the dark waters.

While these thoughts were flashing through his mind Breeze had picked up the buoy-line, cut it free from its keg, and passing the end under Wolfe’s arms and around his body, had made it fast to the after-thwart. He thus effectually fastened his companion to the dory, and relieved, in a measure, the strain on his arms.

He next threw off his oil suit, his heavy outer clothes, and his boots. Then, standing erect, with his sharp sheath-knife held between his teeth, he sprang overboard and disappeared, head-foremost, beneath the water, much as his dorymate had done a few minutes before. In another moment the trawl-line holding Wolfe was cut, and the terrible strain upon his leg was instantly relieved.

If Breeze had not been the splendid swimmer that he was, and brought up from his earliest boyhood to feel almost as much at home in the water as on land, he could not possibly have accomplished this feat. Neither would he have been able to regain the dory, which, taking a send of the sea, was at some distance from him when he again rose to the surface. He only reached it after a hard swim, and was breathless with his exertions by the time he had managed to clamber in over the bow.

His first act was to lighten it, and cause it to ride more buoyantly, by tossing overboard a quantity of the fish with which it was laden. Then he helped Wolfe into the boat; and though the poor fellow’s face was white with the pain he was suffering, he gave no expression to it, but at once began to bail out the water that still caused them great anxiety.

While he was thus employed Breeze was hard at work with the oars, pulling in what he supposed was the direction of the schooner, and keeping a sharp lookout for any waves of unusual size.

At last, when Wolfe had nearly finished bailing, he paused for a moment in his task and said, “Breeze, it was splendid! I don’t believe there was ever a finer thing done on the Banks.”

“Oh, pooh!” replied the other. “What would be the use of learning how to dive and swim under water if you couldn’t do it when it was necessary?”

“Yes, I know; it’s well enough to talk about doing such things within reach of shore, but out here in the middle of the ocean, with a sea like that running, makes it a very different matter. I say it was splendid!”

“Wolfe, if you knew how like a coward it makes me feel now to think of it, you wouldn’t speak of it again. I thank God that he put it into my heart, and gave me the strength to do what I did. Above all, I thank him that you are now with me in this boat, instead of at the bottom of the sea; but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“And I say ‘Amen’ to your thankfulness with all my heart,” replied Wolfe.

“By-the-way,” said Breeze, anxious to change the subject, “do you hear anything of the horn?”

“No, I do not, and I don’t think I have heard it since we were hauling the trawl,” exclaimed Wolfe, with a startled air, while an anxious expression swept over his face. “Let’s listen a minute.”

Breeze stopped rowing, and they listened until he was again obliged to use the oars to head the dory towards another big sea that he saw approaching; but they heard no sound, save the moan of the wind and the rushing of the waters on all sides of them.

It came upon them both like a shock, the terrible thought that they were lost on that wild sea, and in a fog so dense that they could not see fifty feet in any direction. Each saw by the other’s face what he was thinking, but neither of them had the heart to put the thought into words.

“I don’t suppose," said Breeze, at length breaking the silence, “that there’s any use in rowing so long as we don’t know in which direction the schooner lies."

“No,” replied Wolfe, “I don’t suppose there is. We had better make a drogue and get it overboard, to hold her to the wind and keep her from drifting as much as possible. Then we’ll fix ourselves as comfortable as we can, until the fog lifts and we can catch sight of the schooner again.”

Neither of them would admit in words that they did not expect the fog to lift shortly, and that the schooner would still be in sight when this happened. They both knew, however, that it might enshroud them for days, and that they had but a slight chance of ever seeing the _Vixen_ again.

They made a “drogue,” or drag, by fastening an end of the buoy rope to the bow of the dory, and the other to a couple of their trawl tubs, which they then dropped overboard with the trawl anchor attached, to serve as a weight. The tubs filled and sank until their upper edges were on a level with the surface of the water. In this position they acted as a floating anchor to the dory, which tailed off from them at once and rode head on to the wind and sea.

“Stow the oars snugly,” said Wolfe; “we must not lose them whatever happens. Then, I suppose we might as well toss the rest of these fish overboard, though it seems a pity, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and I’m afraid we’ll be sorry for it when we get back to the schooner; but here goes,” and Breeze began to toss the fish overboard vigorously.

When this job was finished, and the dory rode the seas much more easily than she had done, Wolfe said,

“Now that you’ve made things snug and ship-shape, old man, will you help me a bit with this beastly hook? It’s hurting me more than a little.”

“Oh!” cried Breeze in a tone of pitying remorse. “Why didn’t you speak of it sooner? It was awful to leave it in there all this time.”

“Had too much else on hand. It couldn’t get away, and I knew we’d find it right there whenever we got ready to attend to it,” said Wolfe, with an attempt to relieve the anxiety of his friend by making light of his own sufferings.

Each of these two brave young spirits was intent upon presenting a cheerful front to the other, while hiding its own anxiety and forebodings, but neither of them was for a moment deceived as to the nature of their situation.

As carefully as possible, Breeze first cut away the small portion of line that still remained attached to the shank of the hook. Then, after cutting little slits in them and clearing them from it, he drew off Wolfe’s wet lower garments. The hook was fastened into the calf of the right leg, and had torn the flesh cruelly. Now, while Breeze could, if necessary, bear any amount of pain himself, it made him faint to inflict it in cold blood upon others. So, when Wolfe said, “It looks as if you’d have to cut the beggar out, old man,” he replied, “I can’t do it, Wolfe! I haven’t the nerve.”

“Then I must,” answered his companion; and without a moment’s hesitation he reached down, and with one powerful wrench tore the hook from his leg and flung it overboard. “That’s a good job quickly done,” he said, laughing at the other’s pale face. “Now if I only had something to bind it up with!”

For a moment they could think of nothing suitable, for all their garments were woollen. Then Breeze remembered his silken neck-handkerchief, and hastily pulled it off. As he did so it caught on the slender chain that he always wore clasped about his neck according to the promise he had given his mother, and the golden ball attached to it was brought into view.

Wolfe had never before seen it, and as he tightly bandaged his wounded leg he asked Breeze what it was, and why he wore it. In answer Breeze told him all that he knew concerning the ball, not forgetting the encounter with the New York jeweller who had opened it and then closed it again without allowing him to look at its contents.

Wolfe was greatly interested in all this, and examined the locket closely, in the hope of discovering its secret fastening, but without success. For some time they occupied their minds, and kept themselves from thinking of their unhappy situation, by speculating as to what it contained. They wondered who had first clasped the chain around the boy’s baby neck, and Wolfe declared that Breeze was undoubtedly a lost prince, who would some day come into his kingdom. He begged him not to forget his old dorymate when that happy event occurred.

The word “dorymate” recalled them to their present surroundings, and looking up, Wolfe said, “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any prospect of the fog’s lifting yet a while. I wish it would, though, in time to let us get back to the schooner for dinner, for I’m awfully hungry. Speaking of dinner, have we got a bite of anything to eat besides the raw fish we threw overboard?”

At another time Breeze would have laughed heartily at this Irish bull, but now he only answered by going to the dory’s little stern locker and drawing from it his oil-cloth provision-bag. A glance at its contents assured him that they were all right, and he exclaimed, joyfully,

“Here are two dozen large biscuit, and they’ve kept dry!”

“How about water?”

“I looked after that this morning, and the keg’s full of fresh water.”

“Then,” said Wolfe, “we’ve every reason to feel very grateful that we’re so well off; and if we only had a compass we would head for the coast of Newfoundland, and row to it, too, barring bad weather and accidents, before our provisions gave out.”

“Yes,” said Breeze, “we’ve certainly got provisions enough to do it with, for if each of us eats one biscuit a day, they will last us twelve days.”

“Couldn’t we take two a day, and make it six days?” suggested Wolfe.

“How would you like to eat three a day, one each for breakfast, dinner, and supper, and call it a four days’ supply?” asked Breeze.

“Faith! I believe I could eat a dozen of them now, and then wish for the rest without trying, I’m so hungry. But say, Breeze, how long would they last us if we took three apiece the first day, two the second, one the third, and then began and did it all over again?”

Thus talking, and in slowly eating two of their precious biscuit, they managed to pass several hours, at the end of which they were gladdened by a ray of sunlight. The fog was lifting. Starting up, they eagerly scanned their widening horizon, which now extended for some miles on all sides of them. To their bitter disappointment, they could see no sign that any other human beings had ever floated on that dreary waste of waters.

Shortly before sunset the fog settled down again, thicker than ever; and lying down in the bottom of their boat, the dorymates very nearly abandoned themselves to despair. Finally, huddling as closely together as possible, for the sake of what warmth they could thus obtain, they both fell asleep.

In his sleep Breeze dreamed that he was sailing a boat into Gloucester harbor, but that instead of looking out for the familiar landmarks, he was steering her by compass. He dreamed this same thing over and over, until at last he awoke with it strongly impressed upon his mind.

It was night, and intensely dark, while the wind moaned mournfully above the dashing waters. Breeze had no idea of the time, nor how long it would be before daylight. While he was wondering about this he became conscious, to his great surprise, that in his hand he held the golden chain and locket that had been about his neck. His surprise was, moreover, quickly changed to amazement when he felt that the ball was open.