stir hand or foot to prevent it. In fact
that particular port looked rather inviting than otherwise. Any torments
it might have in store could not be worse than those I had undergone
because of this girl. I sat, silent, with my gaze fixed upon the
motionless engine. I heard my passenger move once or twice, but I did
not look at her.

What brought me to my senses was the boat hook, which had been lying on
the seat beside me, suddenly falling to the floor. I started and looked
over the rail. The water, as much of it as I could see through the fog,
was no longer flat and calm. There were waves all about us, not big
ones, but waves nevertheless, long, regular swells in the trough of
which the Comfort rocked lazily. There was no wind to kick up a sea.
This was a ground swell, such as never moved in Denboro Bay. While I sat
there like an idiot the tide had carried us out beyond the Point.

With an exclamation I sprang up and hurried forward. Miss Colton was
sitting where I had left her.

"What is it?" she asked. "What are you going to do?"

"I am going to anchor," I said.

"I do not wish you to anchor."

"I can't help that. I must. Please stand aside, Miss Colton."

She tried to prevent me, but I pushed her away, not too gently I am
afraid, and clambered forward to the bow, where the anchor lay upon its
coil of line. I threw it overboard. The line ran out to its very end and
I waited expectantly for the jerk which would tell me that the anchor
had caught and was holding. But no jerk came. Reaching over the bow I
tried the line. It was taut and heavy. Then I knew approximately how far
we had drifted. We were beyond the shoal making out from Crow Point over
the deep water beyond. My anchor rope was not long enough to reach the
bottom.

Still I was not alarmed. I was provoked at my own stubbornness which had
gotten us into this predicament and more angry than ever at the person
who was the cause of that stubbornness. But I was not frightened. There
were other shoals further out and I left the anchor as it was, hoping
that it might catch and hold on one of them. I went back once more to my
seat by the wheel.

Then followed another interval of silence and inaction. From astern and
a good way off sounded the notes of a bell. From the opposite direction
came a low groan, indescribably mournful and lonely.

My passenger heard it and spoke.

"What was that?" she demanded, in a startled tone.

"The fog horn at Mackerel