"Then what would you advise us to do?"
"Well, just at present I won't give no advice at all. We will see how things are going after a bit. Now let's take a look round."
So saying he climbed the ladder to the deck, followed by the boys. The white fog still shut the boat in like a curtain.
"What do you think of it, Jack?"
"Don't know," the other replied. "Thought just now there was a puff of air coming down the river. I wish it would, or we shan't make Sheerness to-night, much less Rochester. Yes, that's a puff sure enough. You are in luck, young uns. Like enough in half an hour there will be a brisk wind blowing, driving all this fog out to sea before it."
Another and another puff came, and tiny ripples swept across the oil-like face of the water.
"It's a-coming, sure enough," the bargeman said. "I'd bet a pot of beer as the fog will have lifted in a quarter of an hour."
Stronger and stronger came the puffs of wind.
The fog seemed as if stirred by an invisible hand. It was no longer a dull, uniform whitish-gray; dark shadows seemed to flit across it, and sometimes the view of the water extended here and there.
"There's the shore!" Bill exclaimed suddenly, but ere George could turn round to look it was gone again.