“That shows you are right, Block,” said Fritz. “But still, the breeze is so faint that we must not stop rowing.”
“We won’t stop, Mr. Fritz,” the boatswain answered; “let us plug away until the sail can carry us towards the coast.”
“Where is it?” asked Fritz, trying in vain to look through the curtain of fog.
“Right in front of us, for sure!”
“Is it so certain, Block?” Frank put in.
“Where would you have it be, except behind that cursed fog up there in the north?” the boatswain retorted.
“We would have it there all right,” James Wolston said. “But that is not surety enough!”
And they could not possibly know, unless the wind should freshen.
This it made no haste to do, and it was after three when the flapping of the half-clewed sail showed that it might now be of use.
The oars were taken in, and Fritz and Frank hoisted the foresail and hauled it in hard, while the boatswain secured the sheet which was thrashing the gunwale.