They crept in slowly. Passing a ship already docked, they had a weird impression of her, apparently hanging in the air—a grotesque ghost of a ship, the surrounding mist like the vague halo that sometimes shows round the moon. She was only a dim wraith, her powerful electric lights glimmering like smoky lamps, although they were within biscuit-throw of her. Even when alongside the wharf they could not see the people waiting ashore; voices came up to them clearly, but it was impossible to see to whom they belonged. So, like an exceedingly helpless invalid, the Perseus came into port.
“Eight o’clock,” said Mr. Linton, consulting his watch. “H’m; we’ve sat in that old fog for eighteen solid hours.”
“Isn’t it a relief not to hear the fog-horns?” Norah said. “Daddy, are we going ashore?”
“I don’t know,” hesitated her father. “It hardly seems worth while to-night.”
Jim, who had been away, returned quickly.
“I’ve seen the second officer,” he said. “It’s awfully unsatisfactory. Orders are to leave here at daylight, or as near it as can be managed, and they’re going to work cargo all night. Poor beggars! they’ve all been on duty for eighteen hours at least—and the captain has never been off the bridge during the time.”
“Poor fellows!” Norah said. “I think, too, it’s poor us! Then we won’t see Cape Town at all?”
“MacTavish advises us to go ashore,” Jim answered. “He says that the fog may not be so bad in the city itself—it’s some distance away—and that if we take the mountain tram ride we’ll probably get right above it. In any case, the ship will be unbearably noisy, as they have to handle cargo.”
“Then we may as well go,” declared Mr. Linton; and Norah fled delightedly to get ready.
They stumbled through the fog across confused yards and round dim buildings, and presently found a train waiting in a casual fashion by a platform which appeared to be part of the street. They climbed in, and the train woke up hastily and decided to go, as if encouraged by their arrival. Its progress, however, was less hasty than its departure. The fog impeded it, and it crept towards the city with a shrieking of the engine, a grinding of brakes, and a rattling of the carriages, which made the Perseus seem luxuriously peaceful by comparison.