whisper of the wind through the rigging, reigned over all, so that men
listened with anticipations of relief for the sound of answering bells.
The sky at length grew a little lighter, and presently gaps made their
appearance in the fog, allowing peeps over the green and still water.

The captain and the pilot exchanged a few words--the very shortest of
consultations. They had been on the bridge together all night, and had
said all that there was to be said about wind and weather. The captain
gave a sharp order in his gruff voice, and, as if by magic, the watch
on deck appeared from all sides. The chief officer emerged from his
cabin beneath the wheel-house, and went forward into the fog, turning
up his collar. Presently the jerk and clink of the steam-winch told
that the anchor was being got home. The fog had been humoured for six
hours, and the time had now come to move on through thick or thin. What
should Berlin, Petersburg, Vienna, know of a fog on the Maas? And there
were mails and passengers on board this steamer. The clink of the winch
brought one of these on deck. Within the high collar of his fur coat,
beneath the brim of a felt hat pulled well down, the keen; fair face of
Mr. Anthony Cornish came peering up the gangway to the upper bridge. He
exchanged a nod with the captain and the pilot; for with these he had
already been in conversation at the breakfast-table. He took his
station on the bridge behind them, with his hands deep in the pockets
of his loose coat, a cigarette between his lips. A shout from the
forecastle soon intimated that the anchor was up, and the captain gave
the order to the boy at the engine-room telegraph. Through the fog the
forms of the three men on the look-out on the forecastle were dimly
discernible. The great steamer crept cautiously forward into the fog.
The second mate, with his hand on the whistle-line, blared out his
warning note every half-minute. A dim shadow loomed up on the
port-side, which presently took the form of a great steamer at anchor,