“Where I wish we wasn’t,” replied a voice so close to the boys that they jumped. “Right plumb on the Grand Banks,” continued the invisible speaker, whom the boys now recognized as Captain Edwards.
“What’s wrong with the Banks?” asked Tom.
“Nothing wrong with them,” replied the skipper who now stepped from the curtain of fog and stood near the boys. “But Lord alone knows when we may be a-knockin’ into a fishin’ smack, or a-bearin’ down on a dory, or gettin’ run down by a liner. I wish to heaven this condemned fog would lift.”
Hardly had he ceased speaking when there was a hoarse shout from forward, a tearing, grating sound, and a vast dark mass loomed alongside as the Narwhal scraped past a fishing schooner, snapping off the smack’s jib boom. A moment later the stranger was lost in the fog and only faint, angry cries told of her whereabouts.
“Sarved the lubbers right!” exploded Cap’n Pem, as he came hurrying aft to see if the Narwhal had been injured. “Never a-blowin’ o’ nary a horn, nor a-ringin’ o’ their bell!”
“Did it hurt us any?” asked Tom excitedly.
“Carried away a couple of backstays,” replied the skipper. “Lucky we was both headed the same way.”
By now the fog was getting lighter with the rising sun. The boys could see the lower portions of the sails, the lower masts, the ship’s deck as far forward as the forerigging, and the dull gray-green sea for a few hundred feet about the schooner. Beyond that, all was a solid wall of gray through which the Narwhal forged slowly ahead, horn and bell constantly sounding warnings, and with men aloft striving to peer into the impenetrable murk.
“I should think they’d stop and anchor, or heave to until it lifts,” remarked Jim.
“Better to keep movin’,” declared Mr. Kemp, who was peering first to one side and then the other. “Long as we’ve steerage way on, we’ve a chance to dodge another ship—if we see ’em in time.”