'It'll be thicker still by morning,' he said gloomily, and revised his night orders, setting a course due west instead of west by north as he originally intended. He wanted to make certain of keeping clear of Cape St Vincent in the event of fog.
That was one of those minute trifles which may affect a man's whole after life — Hornblower had plenty of time later to reflect on what might have happened had he not ordered that alteration of course. During the night he was often on deck, peering through the increasing mist, but at the time when the crisis came he was down below snatching a little sleep. What woke him was a seaman shaking his shoulder violently.
'Please, sir. Please, sir. Mr Hunter sent me. Please, sir, won't you come on deck, he says, sir.'
'I'll come,' said Hornblower, blinking himself awake and rolling out of his cot.
The faintest beginnings of dawn were imparting some slight luminosity to the mist which was close about them. Le Rêve was lurching over an ugly sea with barely enough wind behind her to give her steerage way. Hunter was standing with his back to the wheel in an attitude of tense anxiety.
'Listen!' he said, as Hornblower appeared.
He half-whispered the word, and in his excitement he omitted the 'sir' which was due to his captain — and in his excitement Hornblower did not notice the omission. Hornblower listened. He heard the shipboard noises he could expect — the clattering of the blocks as Le Rêve lurched, the sound of the sea at her bows. Then he heard other shipboard noises. There were other blocks clattering; the sea was breaking beneath other bows.
'There's a ship close alongside,' said Hornblower.
'Yes, sir,' said Hunter. 'And after I sent below for you I heard an order given. And it was in Spanish — some foreign tongue, anyway.'
The tenseness of fear was all about the little ship like the fog.