king astern, "there's clouds near
the ship."

In an incredibly short space of time the solid cliffs of fog had
broken. The faint wind that had banked it had pierced it, and was now
making pictures and devices of it, most wonderful and weird to see.
Horsemen of the mist rode on the water, and were dissolved; billows
rolled on the sea, yet were not of the sea; blankets and spirals of
vapour ascended to high heaven. And all with a terrible languor of
movement. Vast and lazy and sinister, yet steadfast of purpose as Fate
or Death, the fog advanced, taking the world for its own.

Against this grey and indescribably sombre background stood the
smouldering ship with the breeze already shivering in her sails, and
the smoke from her main-hatch blowing and beckoning as if to the
retreating boats.

"Why's the ship smoking like that?" asked Dick. "And look at those
boats coming--when are we going back, daddy?"

"Uncle," said Emmeline, putting her hand in his, as she gazed towards
the ship and beyond it, "I'm 'fraid."

"What frightens you, Emmy?" he asked, drawing her to him.

"Shapes," replied Emmeline, nestling up to his side.

"Oh, Glory be to God!" gasped the old sailor, suddenly resting on his
oars. "Will yiz look at the fog that's comin'--"

"I think we had better wait here for the boats," said Mr Lestrange; "we
are far enough now to be safe if anything happens."

"Ay, ay," replied the oarsman, whose wits had returned. "Blow up or
blow down, she won't hit us from here."

"Daddy," said Dick, "when are we going back? I want my tea."

"We aren't going back, my child," replied his father. "The ship's on
fire; we are waiting for another ship."

"Where's the other ship?" asked the child, looking round at the horizon
that was clear.

"We can't see it yet," replied the unhappy man, "but it will come."

The long-boat and the quarter-boat were slowly approaching. They looked
like beetles crawling over the water, and after them across the
glittering surface came a dullness that took the sparkle from the
sea--a dullness that swept and spread like an eclipse shadow.

Now the wind struck the dinghy. It was like a wind from fairyland,
almost imperceptible, chill, and dimming the sun. A wind from Lilliput.
As it struck the dinghy, the fog took the distant ship.

It was a most extraordinary sight, for in less than thirty seconds the
ship of wood became a ship of gauze, a tracery flickered, and was gone
forever from the sigh