For, as the day wore on, reports reached the Dockyard from the different coastguard-stations along the eastern and western coast of the mainland and from the Isle of Wight, whence a strict look-out had been kept on the approaches to Spithead and the adjacent waters of the Channel.
These reports were all to the same effect.
Not a trace had been seen of the missing boat; nor anything heard of Bob and Dick.
It was the same the following day, nothing likewise being then reported; although the search had been redoubled and one of the Government tugs sent out from the harbour to scour the offing.
Hope now gave way to despair before the certainty that stared them in the face, putting possibility beyond doubt.
Everybody believed the boat had been swamped, or run down in the fog, and that Bob and Dick were drowned!
Poor boys!