ill--and with reason.

Fog.

Creeping up swiftly, insidiously, like a dark curtain over the sea it
was already upon me. Heavens! how I pulled. But pull I never so
lustily, send the light craft foaming through the water as I was doing,
the dread enemy was swifter still--and all too subtle. Already the
coastline was half blotted out, and the remainder blurred and
indistinct, but up-Channel the sea was still clear. Well, by holding a
straight course now, and keeping what little wind there was upon my
right ear, I could still fetch the land even if I did not soon run into
clear weather again.

But the smother deepened, lying thick upon the surface. Already the air
seemed darkening, and now a distance of half a dozen yards on either
hand was all that was visible--sometimes not as much.

Was it demoralisation evoked by this sudden blotting out of the world
around, as I found myself alone in the dark vastness of this spectral
silence?--for now I felt tired and was obliged to rest on my sculls more
than once. And again and again, though hot and perspiring, I shivered.

Now through the silence came the whooping of a steamer's siren.
Another, further out, answered in ghostly hoot. Heavens! what did this
mean? Had I, while resting, been insidiously turned round and was now
sculling my utmost out into mid-Channel--and--right into the path of
passing shipping? And with the thought it occurred to me that no sound
of the shore--the striking of a church clock or the bark of a dog, for
instance, reached my ears. The thought was an uncomfortable one--almost
appalling. One thing was clear. Further rowing was of no use at all.

Again rose the hoot of that spectral foghorn, and as it ceased I lifted
up my voice and shouted like mad. But the steamer was probably not near
enough for those on board of her to hear my yell, and from the
repetition of the sound she seemed to be passing.

It was now almost dark. Shivering violently, I put on my coat and
waistcoat--which I had thrown off when beginning my pull--but they were
light summer flannels and of small protection--and looked the situation
in the face. Here was I, in a cockleshell of a craft, which even the
smallest rising of the sea would inevitably swamp, shut in by thick
impenetrable fog anywhere out towards mid-Channel, and drifting Heaven
knew where, with nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and a long night
before me to do it in. I might be picked up, but it was even