ake in the entire
scene.

"Why, it's clear enough."

"Clear? Then let me tell you that when you see a atmosphere like this
here, then you may expect to see it any moment changed into deep, thick
fog. Any moment--five minutes 'll be enough to snatch everything from
sight, and bury us all in the middle of a unyversal fog bank."

"What'll we do?"

"Dew? That's jest the question."

"Can we go on?"

"Wal--without wind--I don't exactly see how. In a fog a wind is not
without its advantages. That's one of the times when the old Antelope
likes to have her sails up; but as we hain't got no wind, I don't think
we'll do much."

"Will you stay here at anchor?"

"At anchor? Course not. No, sir. Moment the tide falls again, I'll
drift down so as to clear that pint there,--Cape Chignecto,--then
anchor; then hold on till tide rises; and then drift up. Mebbe before
that the wind 'll spring up, an give us a lift somehow up the bay."

"How long before the tide will turn?"

"Wal, it'll be high tide at about a quarter to eight this evenin, I
calc'late."

"You'll drift in the night, I suppose."

"Why not?"

"O, I didn't know but what the fog and the night together might be too
much for you."

"Too much? Not a bit of it. Fog, and night, and snow-storms, an tide
dead agin me, an a lee shore, are circumstances that the Antelope has
met over an over, an fit down. As to foggy nights, when it's as calm
as this, why, they're not wuth considerin."

Captain Corbet's prognostication as to the fog proved to be correct.
It was only for a short time that they were allowed to stare at the
magnified proportions of the Nova Scotia coast and Ile Haute. Then a
change took place which attracted all their attention.

The change was first perceptible down the bay. It was first made
manifest by the rapid appearance of a thin gray cloud along the
horizon, which seemed to take in both sea and sky, and absorbed into
itself the outlines of both. At the same time, the coast of Nova
Scotia grew more obscure, though it lost none of its magnified
proportions, while the slaty blue of Ile Haute changed to a grayer
shade.

This change was rapid, and was followed by other changes. The thin
gray cloud, along the south-west horizon, down the bay, gradually
enlarged itself; till it grew to larger and loftier proportions. In a
quarter of an hour it had risen to the dimensions of the Nova Scotia
coast. In a half an hour it was towering to