and noted its position. Before we reached the harbour the fog was on
us, charging up the streets in dense masses. Happily a tramline led
right up to the pier-head, or we should have lost our way and wasted
time, which, in the event, was of priceless value. Presently we
stumbled up against the Harbour Office, which was our landmark for
the steps where we had tied up the dinghy. The same official appeared
and good-naturedly held the painter while we handed in our parcels.
He wanted to know why we had left the flesh-pots of the 'Vier
Jahreszeiten'. To look after our yacht, of course. There was no need,
he objected; there would be no traffic moving while the fog lasted,
and the fog, having come on at that hour, had come to stay. If it did
clear he would keep an eye on the yacht for us. We thanked him, but
thought we would go aboard.

'You'll have a job to find her now,' he said.

The distance was eighty yards at the most, but we had to use a
scientific method, the same one, in fact, that Davies had used last
night in the approach to the eastern pier.

'Row straight out at right angles to the pier,' he said now. I did
so, Davies sounding with his scull between the strokes. He found the
bottom after twenty yards, that being the width of the dredged-out
channel at this point. Then we turned to the right, and moved gently
forward, keeping touch with the edge of the mud-bank (for all the
world like blind men tapping along a kerbstone) and taking short
excursions from it, till the Dulcibella hove in view. 'That's partly
luck,' Davies .commented; 'we ought to have had the compass as well.'

We exchanged shouts with the man on the pier to show we had arrived.