When daylight came, it shone on the fog walls that bound the Ajax prisoner. The wan light showed Jack the figures of the captain and his first officer on the bridge. He knew that through the long night they had kept their weary vigil. But so dense was the fog that it was not always possible to see the bridge from the after superstructure.
Only when light and vagrant breezes sent the fog-wreaths fluttering and writhing, like ghosts, could a blurred view of the forward part of the ship be obtained.
Jack, too, had been on duty all night and he felt dull and wretched. Through the fog had come calls from other ships, and vague whisperings and chatterings, all fraught with fear and caution.
So far as those on the Ajax knew, there was no ship closer to them than the Plutonia of the Smithson Lines. Jack had been busy through the night, running back and forth with messages. Now, as he came to the door of his cabin for a breath of the fog-laden air, he was musing to himself on the anxious look on the captain’s furrowed face.
It was not the fog. Jack had seen the captain guide his ship through even denser smothers than the present one. He had always been his calm, collected, even cold, self.
But now the very air appeared to be vibrant with some vague apprehension which the boy could not name or even guess at. But it was something that lay outside the fog. Some overshadowing peril of more than ordinary imminence.
As the steamer crawled forward, the mournful hooting of her siren sounding like the very spirit of the mist, Jack revolved all these things in his mind. He felt vaguely troubled.
It was no small thing that could worry the stalwart skipper of the Ajax, as he palpably was worried. Fog was dangerous, yes, but what with the wireless and the extraordinary caution observed, the peril was reduced to a minimum.
The watches forward had been doubled and in the crow’s nest two men had been stationed. But that was customary in a fog. Suddenly, as Jack stood there, his wireless alarm,—he had perfected the device and had made application for a patent on the same,—began to clamor loudly.
Jack hurried to his post. It was the Westerland, a hundred and fifty miles east and considerably to the south, calling.