t, shutting out the surface of the water,
and finally the gray rocks of North Heads were hidden, and little by
little the shore was curtained from our view and we were becalmed in
the fog.

To say that the skipper swore would hardly describe his case. He cursed
his luck, his stars, his foretop, his main hatch, his blasted
foolishness, his lubberly crew--Lanky and I--and a variety of other
persons and things; but all to no avail. Night came on, and the light
on North Heads gleamed at us with a sickly eye through the deepening
fog. We had a bit of luncheon with us, but no fire, and were fain to
content ourselves with cold meat, bread, and water, hoping that a warm
breakfast in San Francisco would make some amends for our present short
rations. But the night wore on, and we were still tumbling about in the
rising sea without wind enough to fill our sails, a rayless sky
overhead, and with breakers continually under our lee. Once we saw
lights on shore, and heard the sullen thud of rollers that smote
against the rocks; it was aggravating, as the fog lifted for a space,
to see the cheerful windows of the Cliff House, and almost hear the
merry calls of pleasure-seekers as they muffled themselves in their
wraps and drove gayly up the hill, reckless of the poor homeless
mariners who were drifting comfortlessly about so near the shore they
could not reach. We got out the sweeps and rowed lustily for several
hours, steering by the compass and taking our bearings from the cliff.

But we lost our bearings in the maze of currents in which we soon found
ourselves, and the dim shore melted away in the thickening fog. To add
to our difficulties, Captain Booden put his head most frequently into
the cuddy; and when it emerged, he smelt dreadfully of gin. Lanky and I
held a secret council, in which we agreed, in case he became
intoxicated, we would rise up in mutiny and work the vessel on our own
account. He shortly "lost his head," as Lanky phrased it; and slipping
down on the deck, went quietly into the sleep of the gin-drunken. At
four o'clock in the morning the gray fog grew grayer with the early
dawning; and as I gazed with weary eyes into the vague unknown that
shut us in, Booden roused him from his booze, and seizing the tiller
from my hand, bawled: "'Bout ship, you swab! we're on the Farralones!"
And sure enough, there loomed right under our starboard quarter a group
of conical rocks, steeply rising from the restless blue sea. The