“This horn, then, is the best thing. Shouting is of no use,” said Mr. Long; and he blew another blast.
Again they listened, and again there was no response. To their waiting ears, as they listened in an anguish of expectation, there came no answering cry, no shout, no pistol shot—nothing but the plash of waves near by, the singing of the wind through the rigging, and the boom of the surf on some distant beach which the fog hid from view.
On went the schooner, and Mr. Long blew unweariedly, clinging to this horn as something by which he still might gain access to the lost boys, and finding in this occupation something of that antidote to pain which action of any kind yields to the energetic nature. But time passed on, and only the winds heard these shrill blasts, and only the winds responded to the signal.
So darkness came upon them, and night; and the darkness of this night was intensified, by the thick fog, so that it became a darkness which might be felt.
“Ef we want to save the boys,” said Captain Corbet at last to Mr. Long, who stood dejectedly near him, “my opinion is, that we’d better keep afloat ourselves; but at the rate we’re goin’, it’s my opinion that before long we’ll be high and dry. And we may thank our blessed stars if we light on a mud flat, and don’t get dashed to small bits on Blomidon. Them’s my sentiments.”
“Why, don’t you know where you are?”
“No more idee where I am than the man in the moon.”
“I thought you knew the coast.”
“So I do—like a book.”
“What do you mean, then?”