One could not see it. Only it was as if the ring of sea to windward had of a sudden grown smaller. Heidrek was not a mile astern of us, and still his ships were in bright sunshine. Even as we watched them, a grayness fell on them, and then they grew dim.
Then the fog closed in on us, and swallowed us up, and drifted across the decks so thickly that we could barely see from gunwale to gunwale, damp, and chilling. Still, the wind did not fail us, hurrying the fog before it.
"We must hold on until we know if this is but a bank of fog, or if it is everywhere," Bertric said. "What say you, Malcolm?"
I thought a while, knowing the cold sea fogs of the north pretty well.
"Heidrek will be in it by this time," I said. "Fog bank or more, I would about ship and run back past him with the wind. If it is a bank, we shall go with it, and he must lose us. If it is more, we can get on our southward course in it shortly, and if he sights us again, he will have all his work to catch us, for his men will be tired of rowing."
"What if the fog lifts directly?"
"We shall be little worse off than now--and we shall be heading down on Heidrek before he knows it."
"Aye," he answered, "with way enough on us to sink him offhand, and maybe take this ship clear through his. Get to the sheets, you and Dalfin, and we will chance it."
Bertric luffed, and we hauled the tack amidships. Then he paid off to the wind, and we slacked off the sheet with the help of a turn of its fall round the great cleat of the backstay. The wash of the waves round the bows ceased, and there was only the little hiss of the water as the sea broke alongside of us. It always seems very silent for a little while when one puts about for a run after beating to windward.
"Listen," said Bertric under his breath, "we shall hear Heidrek directly on the starboard bow somewhere. Pray Heaven he has not changed his course, or we shall hit him! He will not have luffed any more, for certain."