The fog had not lifted for a single moment since morning, and when darkness again shut down upon them it still infolded them in its clammy embrace. Although the night was calm, they tossed their drag overboard lest a wind should rise while they slept. Then, after eating their scanty supper of a single biscuit each, they lay down, hugging each other closely for warmth, and prepared to pass the night in such comfort as their circumstances would permit.
Before they dropped asleep Breeze heard Wolfe say, as though talking to himself, “We must have made something over fifty miles to-day, and at the same rate we’ll soon reach the Nova Scotia coast now.”
Breeze smiled at this too evident attempt to cheer him; for he knew, as well as Wolfe, that they had not made more than twenty or twenty-five miles at the most, and that the coast towards which they were heading was still several hundred miles from them. Three more days would finish their biscuit at the rate they had been eating them, and even now he was so hungry that he felt they might as well starve at once as to try and economize them any longer. Their fresh water was already half gone, and altogether their prospect was a very gloomy one.
The night passed uneventfully, but before daylight Wolfe was awakened by an exclamation of dismay from his companion. “What is the trouble?” he inquired, sitting up stiffly.
“The ball is closed,” answered Breeze.
“Closed?”
“Yes; it must have got pushed together somehow while I was asleep, and I can’t get it open again.”
“And a good job, too,” said Wolfe. “Now we’ll have no excuse for rowing this day, and I’m glad; for my back’s broke thinking of it.”
“But don’t you want to get to Nova Scotia?”
“Indeed, I do not! An out-of-the-way place like that? I’d prefer to be picked up where we are by some craft that’ll take us into New York, or Boston, or maybe Gloucester itself.”