re. Land was shut out, then sky, then every single thing,
and the glazed sea seemed to stiffen as if it had set flat and smooth for
ever.

To know that this state of thing was to last for hours would make it
intolerable, but the expectancy of every moment buoys up the mind in
hope, and every past moment is buried as you reach thus forward to the
next coming.

Then the inexorable tide turned dead against me, and down went my anchor;
for, at any rate, we must not be floated backwards. Tool-chest opened,
and hammer and saw are instantly at work, for there are still "things to
be done" on board, and when all improvements shall have been completed
then vacant hours like these will be tedious enough; but never fear,
there is no finality in a sailing-boat, if the brain keeps inventing and
the fingers respond.

Out of the thick creamy fog a huge object slowly loomed, with a grand air
of majesty, and a low but strenuous sound as it came nearer and clearer
to eye and ear. It was an enormous Atlantic Steamer, and it went
circling round and round in ample bends, but never too far to be
unexpected again. Sometimes her great paddles moved with a measured
plash, but slow, until she dissolved before my eyes into a faded vision.
Again, when hidden, there would still come a deep moaning from her hoarse
fog-whistle out of the impenetrable whiteness, and she again towered up
suddenly behind, ever wheeling, gliding on, vapour and water so
commingled that you could not say she floated, but was somehow faintly
present like the dim picture on a canvas screen from a magic lantern half
in focus. She was searching in the fog for the 'Nab' light-ship, thence
to take new bearings and cleave the mist in a straight course at
half-speed for Southampton. When she found the 'Nab' she vanished
finally, and I was glad and sorry she was gone.

After long waiting, the faintest zephyr now at last dallied with my light
flag for a minute, and the anchor was instantly raised. A schooner, also
outward bound, soon gently burst its way through the cloudy barrier, and
I tried to follow her, but she too melted into dimness, and left me in a
noiseless, sightless vacancy, except when the distant gong of the
light-ship told that they also had a fog there.

How did the ancients by any possibility manage to sail in a fog without a
compass? In those days, too, they had no charts; yes, and there was no
"Wreck chart," to tell at the year's end all the havoc str