"There she is, blowing off her steam, or her funnel smoking, quite plain!"

"Lor', Master Bob!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the other, after peering fixedly for a moment where his companion directed him to look. "That arn't no steam or smoke as ever I seed. It be a cloud, or fog, I knows; or summut o'

that sort, sure-ly, Master Bob!"

Bob, however, would not be persuaded of this, persisting that he was right and d.i.c.k wrong.

"I don't know where your eyes can be!" he said scornfully. "I'll bet anything it's a steamer; or, I never saw one!"

But ere another hour had pa.s.sed over their heads, d.i.c.k was proved to be the true prophet; he, the false!

The low-lying bank of vapour, which originally resembled the trail of smoke from some pa.s.sing steam-vessel on her way down Channel, gradually spread itself out along the horizon.

It then rose up, like a curtain, from the sea; and, stretching up its clammy heads towards the zenith, widened over the heavens until it shut out the western sun from their gaze, making the still early afternoon seem as night.

Creeping over the surface of the sullen water with ghostly footsteps, the mist soon shrouded the boat in its pall-like folds; impregnating the surrounding atmosphere with moisture and making the boys believe it was raining, though never a drop fell.

It was only a sea-fog, that was all.

But it was accompanied by a dampness that seemed like the hand of Death!

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

"SHIP, AHOY!"

"It is the last straw," says the proverb, "that breaks the camel's back!"

Bob's courage had been on the wane long before the white, woolly fog environed them; although, up to now he had endeavoured to brave it out in the presence of d.i.c.k, the very consciousness that he was the main cause of their being in such a perilous predicament preventing him from betraying the fears he felt.

But, when this octopus of the air clutched them in its corpse-like grip, breathing its wet vapoury breath into their faces, soddening their clothes with heavy moisture and slackening their energies as it had already damped their hopes of a steam-vessel coming to the rescue, Bob, whose nerves were strained to their utmost tension, at last broke down.

"Oh, d.i.c.k!" he cried, bursting into a pa.s.sion of tears, all the more vehement now from his ever having been a manly boy and in the habit of stifling all such displays of emotion, even when severely hurt, as had happened on more than one occasion in a football scrimmage at school, whence he got the name of Stoic amongst his mates. "Oh, d.i.c.k, poor d.i.c.k! I'm sorry I made you come with me to your death! I wonder what my mother and dad will say, and Nell too, when they come to learn that we are lost?"

"Don't 'ee now, Master Bob, give way like that!" said

d.i.c.k, the brave lad, forgetting his own sad plight on seeing his unhappy comrade's alarm and grief. "Cheer up, Master Bob, like a good sort! We bean't lost yet, ye knows!"

"I'm afraid we are, d.i.c.k! I'm afraid we are!" sobbed Bob, as the pair of unfortunates got gradually wetter and more miserable, if that were possible; the density of the atmosphere around them increasing so that it seemed as if they were enveloped in a drenching cloud, this mist of the sea being the offspring of the waters, and consequently taking after its humid parent. "Why, we're miles and miles away from land, and drifting further and further off every moment! Oh, d.i.c.k, we're lost-- we're lost!"

"Now, don't 'ee, Master Bob, don't 'ee!" cried d.i.c.k, folding one of his arms, like a mother, round the other's neck and drawing him towards him to comfort him. "We ain't a bit lost yet, I tell 'ee, sure-ly. Why, we ain't at sea as you says at all. We be ounly in the h'offin'

hereabouts."

This woke up Bob to argument.

"Only the offing, you say, d.i.c.k?" he replied, with some of his old dogmatism as they drifted on and on, the ebb-tide that was bearing them away on its bosom lapping against the sides of the boat with a melancholy sound, though almost deadened by the oppressiveness of the damp sea-fog. "Do you know how wide the Channel is 'hereabouts,' as you say?"

"No, Master Bob," said the other lad humbly. "I doesn't. I ain't no scholard, as you knows."

"Then, I'll tell you," rejoined Bob triumphantly. "It must be nearly a hundred miles wide here between the French and English coasts!"

d.i.c.k, however, was not abashed by this broad statement.

"That mebbe, Master Bob," he replied modestly, scratching the back of his neck where one of his damp locks of hair tickled him at the moment.

"But, I heard the Cap'en say ounly t'other day as how there was so many ships a-pa.s.sing up and down as a boat adrift wer' bound to be sighted!"

"But, suppose a hundred ships pa.s.sed us," said Bob, who would not be comforted, in spite of all d.i.c.k's efforts. "Why, old chap, they couldn't see us! The fog would prevent them!"

"Lor', so her would!" a.s.sented d.i.c.k, unable to gainsay this argument.

"I forgets that, I did, sure-ly!"

After a time, Bob's sobs ceased and he began to think of something else; something that affected him, for the moment, even more strongly than his fears.

"I'm awfully hungry, d.i.c.k," he said. "Have you got any more bread-and- cheese left?"

"No, not a sc.r.a.p," was the melancholy answer. "I giv' yer half, share and share alike; and I've ate every crumb o' mine!"

"Isn't there anything in the locker?"

"Nothing, but the Cap'en's hatchet! Don't you bear in mind as how I scrubbed her out afore we started?"

"Yes, so you did, I recollect," replied Bob moodily, his appet.i.te being well-nigh unbearable from its insatiable gnawing. "How do you feel, d.i.c.k?"

"I feels as if I could eat the h'elephant we seed in the circus."

This made Bob laugh hysterically.

"I think I could, too," he said, between his paroxysms of laughter and sobs. "I never felt so hungry in my life before!"

Another interval of silence followed this confession.

"I'll tell 'ee what, Master Bob," observed d.i.c.k, on their comparing notes again presently, when both acknowledged to being cold and wet and miserable. "Let us crawl into the cabin and lie down, hey? It'll be warmer than here, sure-ly!"

"So it will," cried Bob, getting up and stretching his limbs, which were stiff with cramp from sitting so long in the damp air; the fog around them appearing to get all the thicker as the time pa.s.sed. "I wonder neither of us thought of that before?"

The two then crept in under the half-deck; and, covering themselves up with the cutter's gaff-topsail, which had been placed within the cabin along with some spare canvas, dropped off into a sound slumber, forgetting their sad plight and their hunger alike, in sleep, the yacht meanwhile still floating along, down Channel, in a west-by-north direction with the ebb.

Their rest did not last long.

Bob was suddenly awakened from a dream of a wonderful banquet, which he was enjoying, by a sort of rushing gurgling sound; while the boat rocked to and fro at the same time uneasily.

Rubbing his eyes, he started up and listened for a moment.

Then, he shook d.i.c.k to arouse him.

"Hullo! Wake up!" he cried. "The wind has sprung up again; and, I think, we're moving through the water!"

"I'll soon find out," said d.i.c.k, going outside and putting his hand over the gunwale, calling out the instant afterwards, "You're right, Master Bob! We be moving, right enough. Aye, so we be, sure-ly!"