In fifteen minutes more, he had eaten his breakfast, and was descending the steep path to the river, where the Rosabel was moored. The weather was cloudy, and out at sea it looked as if the fog would roll in, within a short time, as it often did during the spring and summer. Indeed, the one bane of this coast, as a pleasure resort, is the prevalence of dense and frequently long-continued fog. Sometimes it shrouds the shores for several days at a time; and it has been known to last for weeks. It is cold, penetrating, and disagreeable to the denizen of the city, seeking ease and comfort in a summer home.
When the sloop passed Light House Point, Leopold saw that the dense fog had settled down upon the bay, and had probably been there all night. But he did not bother his head about the fog, for he knew the sound which the waves made upon every portion of the shore. As one skilled in music knows the note he hears, Leopold identified the swash or the roar of the sea when it beat upon the rocks and the beaches in the vicinity. By these sounds he knew where he was, and he had a boat-compass on board of the Rosabel, which enabled him to lay his course, whenever he obtained his bearings.
Before the sloop had gone a quarter of a mile she was buried in the fog, and Leopold could see nothing but the little circle of water of which the Rosabel was the centre. With the compass on the floor of the standing-room, he headed the sloop for the ledges, outside of which he expected to find plenty of cod and haddock. The wind was rather light, but it was sufficient to give the Rosabel a good headway, and in half an hour he recognized the roar of the billows upon the ledges. Going near enough to them to bring the white spray of the breaking waves within the narrow circle of his observation, he let off his main sheet, and headed the sloop directly out to sea.
The best fishing ground at this season was about two miles from the ledges; and with the wind free, Leopold calculated that he had made this distance in half an hour. He had cleared away his cable, and had his anchor ready to throw overboard, when the hoarse croaking of a fog-horn attracted his attention. The sound came from the seaward side of him, and from a point not far distant.
The Rosabel was provided with one of those delectable musical instruments, whose familiar notes came to her skipper's ears. It was rather a necessity to have one, in order to avoid collisions; besides, it is fun for boys to make the most unearthly noises which mortal ear ever listened to.
Leopold blew his fog-horn, and it was answered by a repetition of the sound to seaward. The craft, whatever it was, from which the music came, was much nearer than when the skipper of the Rosabel first heard the signal. This satisfied him that she was headed to the north-east, and was nearly close-hauled, for the wind was about east; in other words, the craft from which the melody of the fog horn came was standing from the sea directly towards the ledges off High Rock.
Leopold blew his horn again and again, and the responses came nearer and nearer every time. The craft was evidently bound up the bay, or into the Rockhaven river. If she was going to Rockland, or up the bay, she was very much out of her course. If she was going into the river, she was more likely to strike upon the ledge than to hit her port.
"Ahoy! Ahoy!" came a hoarse voice, apparently pitched from the note of the fog-horn.
The skipper of the Rosabel judged that the craft was not more than an eighth of a mile from him.
"Ahoy! Ahoy!" he shouted in reply, at the top of his voice.