end of it; six, allowing
for bends; hour and a half hard pulling; two, allowing for checks.
Are you fit? You'll have to pull the most. Then there are six or
seven more miles--easier ones. And then--What are we to do when we
get there?'

'Leave that to me,' I said. 'You get me there.'

'Supposing it clears?'

'After we get there? Bad; but we must risk that. If it clears on the
way there it doesn't matter by this route; we shall be miles from
land.'

'What about getting back?'

'We shall have a rising tide, anyway. If the fog lasts--can you
manage in a fog _and_ dark?'

'The dark makes it no more difficult, if we've a light to see the
compass and chart by. You trim the binnacle lamp--no, the
riding-light. Now give me the scissors, and don't speak a word for
ten minutes. Meanwhile, think it out, and load the dinghy--(by Jove!
though, don't make a sound)--some grub and whisky, the boat-compass,
lead, riding-light, matches, _small_ boat-hook, grapnel and line.'

'Foghorn?'

'Yes, and the whistle too.'

'A gun?'

'What for?'

'We're after ducks.'

'All right. And muffle the rowlocks with cotton-waste.'

I left Davies absorbed in the charts, and softly went about my own
functions. In ten minutes he was on the ladder, beckoning.

'I've done,' he whispered. 'Now _shall_ we go?'

'I've thought it out. Yes,' I answered.

This was only roughly true, for I could not have stated in words all
the pros and cons that I had balanced. It was an impulse that drove
me forward; but an impulse founded on reason, with just a tinge,
perhaps, of superstition; for the quest had begun in a fog and might
fitly end in one.

It was twenty-five minutes to eleven when we noiselessly pushed off.
'Let her drift,' whispered Davies, 'the ebb'll carry her past the
pier.'

We slid by the 'Dulcibella', and she disappeared. Then we sat without
speech or movement for about five minutes, while the gurgle of tide
through piles approached and passed. The dinghy appeared to be
motionless, just as a balloon in the clouds may appear to its
occupants to be motionless, though urged by a current of air. In
reality we were driving out of the Riff-Gat into the See-Gat. The
dinghy swayed to a light swell.

'Now, pull,' said Davies, under his breath; 'keep it long and steady,
above all steady--both arms with equal force.'

I was on the bow-thwart; he _vis-a-vis_ to me on the stern seat, his
left hand behind him on the tiller, his right forefin