Norah gripped the rail, feeling her father’s arm come round her in the gloom. Jim came up on the other side, watching keenly, his face lined and anxious. Ordinary danger was one thing; this creeping horror, coming relentlessly out of the unseen, was another matter.
Then the white wall of mist wavered and parted slowly, a dark shape loomed high, and almost upon them they saw a great ship. She was so near that they could see the strained faces on her decks. Her fog-horn was answering the Perseus in a very frenzy of alarm—and suddenly the Perseus was silent, as if realising the uselessness of warning now. On she came, slowly, slowly; it seemed that by no possibility could she avoid crashing into the huge, helpless liner. They were almost touching; people on both ships held their breath, waiting dumbly for the end.
Then the great black bow edged off as if by magic, and the ship slid past them, only a few yards away. Slowly as she had come, her passing was slower yet; it seemed hours that she was beside them, almost touching, with the risk of her stern swinging to crash into the Perseus. But no crash came. The fog took her and swallowed her up as mysteriously as she had come.
“Phew-w!” whistled Grantham. “I don’t want anything nearer than that!”
Norah was shaking a little. A lady passenger further up the deck was indulging in mild hysterics, to the indignation of the doctor and her husband’s deep shame. The fog-horn broke out again in the long monotonous wail, at half-minute intervals, that had gone on all day.
They sat on deck, wrapped in rugs, watching. No one wanted to go down—bad enough in the open, it was better to be there, and to see as much as could be seen. Now and then a little breeze came, and the wall of mist parted ever so little, blowing away in trails like white chiffon; and once, in one of these moments, they caught a glimpse of a sailing ship, drifting by, with bare, gaunt masts. The fog closed round her again, blotting her out utterly.
Then, towards evening, there came a quick succession of sharp hoots, unlike anything they had heard; and a motor-launch came into view and darted alongside, under the bridge. A man in blue uniform shouted swift questions.
“I’ll bring you a tug!” he cried, at last.
They disappeared again, and the delay that followed seemed intolerably long. Then the launch hooted its way back, followed by a bluff shape that resolved itself into a steam-tug. She hung about just ahead. The Perseus came slowly to life; the screw throbbed slowly. They began to crawl through the water after the tug. Once she disappeared, running on a little too quickly—and the great liner began to hoot anxiously, like a frightened child crying for its nurse, until the tug came back. So they crawled together through the clinging mist-curtain until dun lights showed ahead, and voices from the shore came to their ears.
“That’s the wharf at Cape Town,” said the doctor. “You have to take it on trust. Why, the fog is thicker here than out at sea!”