e bit. The bottom here don't suit me yet."

He went down from the poop and walked the deck, listening between
clangings of the bell for any sound of an approaching vessel. The crew
worked swiftly at dressing and salting the catch.

"Haul up anchor," he ordered when the work was done.

The watch laid hold the windlass poles and hauled the vessel forward
directly above her hook. Then there was a concerted heave and the
ground tackle broke loose and came up with a rush.

Under headsails and riding sail the _Rosan_ swung into the light air
that stirred the fog and began to crawl forward while the men were
still cat-heading the anchor. The youth who had been ringing the bell
now substituted the patent fog-horn, as marine law requires when
vessels are under way.

With his eyes on the compass, Turner guided the ship himself. They
seemed to move through an endless gray world.

For an hour they sailed, the only sounds being the flap of the canvas,
the creaking of the tiller ropes, and the drip of the fog. Tanner was
about to give the word to let go the anchor when, without warning,
they suddenly burst clear of the fog and came out into the vast gray
welter of the open sea.

Tanner suddenly straightened up, and slipping the wheel swiftly into
the becket, he ran to the taffrail and looked over the side.

"Good God!" he cried. "What's this?"

Not fifty feet away lay a blue dory, heavy and loggy with water, and
in the bottom the unconscious figure of a man.

A second look at the face of the man and Tanner cried:

"Wheelan and Markle, overside with the starboard dory. Here's Code
Schofield adrift! Lively now!"

There was a rush aft, but Tanner met the crew and drove them to the
nested boats amidships.

"Over, I say!" he roared.

The men obeyed him, and Wheelan and Markle were soon pulling madly to
the blue dory astern.

When they reached it one man clambered to the bow and cut the drag
rope that Code, in his extremity, had thrown over nearly two days
before. Then, fastening the short painter to a thwart in their own
craft, they hauled the blue dory and its contents alongside the
_Rosan_.

Code Schofield lay with his eyes closed, pale as wax, and seemingly
dead. In his right hand he still gripped convulsively the bailing-can
he had used until consciousness left him.

Man, boat, and all, the dory was hauled up and let gently down on the
deck. Then the eager hands lifted Schofield from the water and laid
him on th