fog. Midnight would decide whether at
day-dawn I must pull for it, and run, if possible, the line of breakers
on Rye Beach, with rather less than an even chance of coming out
right-end uppermost, or whether the wind and sea would go down so that I
could slip quietly ashore before the gale returned.

Midnight came at last; the rain ceased and the wind began to shift to
the south, and I knew that now the probability of going ashore decently
was good. The tide having turned, the wind moderated, and the sea,
though still high, was longer and did not break so quickly. Still
farther to the south veered the wind, and a little after three, as well
as I could tell by my watch, the fog thinned, so that, looking up, I
caught the faint glimmer of a star; then another peeped through the
cloud. The mist broke in several places, then drifted over, then broke
again; and, chancing to look seaward, a light flared into full blaze
for a moment, swung smaller, then vanished. There was no mistaking
it,--White Island light at last!

Backing with one oar, pulling with the other, I rose on the top of a
great sea, and caught the light again just as it began to come into
sight. Off I went, at a splendid pace, driving along in the trough and
over the crest of the waves, steering by a star behind me, for about ten
minutes; then light and stars sank back into the mist, and all was
black again. I waited a few moments, and again the light shone out; but
meantime the boat's bow had veered several points. Turning toward it,
I was off full speed this time for about five minutes, before the fog
swept in again. Then another rest on my oars. The fog drifted out and
drifted in backwards and forwards, now thinning here, then thinning
there; but no other glimpse of the light did I get that night. For a
moment, a shadowy-looking schooner glided slowly along a few hundred
feet ahead of me, and directly across my track,--then melted out into
the darkness. After waiting some time longer, finding no chance of
another glimpse of the light, I secured my oars, and, as the wind and
sea had decreased, got ready to turn in. The seat-room was only four
feet long,--two feet short of my length; and the washboard, which was
three inches in height, surrounded the seat-room and obliged me to use
the boat-sponge as a pillow. But trusting to chance that my craft would
come across nothing either fixed or floating, I retreated at once to the
land of Nod. What the weather was dur