"There was no need. I bolted the doors and slept at the foot of the stairs. It's all cotton-wool outside. You can't see a couple of feet. He won't venture out in that, if I know him. But we need water. I'll go across after breakfast and get some."
"I shall come too. I wouldn't stop here alone for anything."
"All right. Our only difficulty will be in finding the shore and getting back to the ship. Fog is terribly bewildering."
"If you can find the shore we can get back all right," she said, after thinking it over.
"How?"
"We have that heap of rope you brought over. Could we not untwist some and make a cord? Then if we tied one end to the ship and carried the other ashore we could feel our way back by it."
"It will take a lot of untwisting. We're quite two hundred yards from the shore. But it's worth trying."
So they untwisted rope till their fingers were sore, and tied the pieces together till he judged they had enough, and presently they embarked noiselessly on their raft and paddled in the direction in which he believed the shore lay, The Girl paying out the string as they went.
This weird envelopment of dense white mist was a new experience for her. She could barely see the water a foot or two away. The string slipped through her fingers and vanished into the fog-wall. Dale, sweeping the water with his oar, loomed dim and large just above her.
They went on and on, but found no shore.