"Only four hours, sir," replied Jock. "Nothing's happened, so we let you sleep on."
Stiffly, the Scoutmaster sat up. A grating makes a hard bed, oilskins and greatcoat notwithstanding. Looking over the port coaming of the cockpit he found that the range of vision was limited to a distance of about a hundred yards, but there were indications that matters would improve in that direction. The wind too had increased, and was blowing more to the starboard quarter.
"That's much better, lads!" exclaimed the Scoutmaster. "I hope we've seen the last of the fog. It hung about much longer than usual."
"Where are we, sir?" asked the three Sea Scouts in chorus.
"That's a problem I'll leave you to find out," was the reply. "Get hold of the chart and let each of you pin-prick the position you think we are in. The winner gets a coco-nut when we put into port."
This competition kept the crew busy, as they argued amongst themselves and plied parallel rulers and dividers in an attempt to solve the problem.
The tail-end of the fog cleared fairly rapidly. By ten o'clock the horizon was visible, but land was nowhere in view.
"Shin aloft and see if you can sight land, Hayes," said the Scoutmaster.
Hayes, lithe and active as a kitten, went up to the cross-trees, grasping the main halliards and using the mast-hoops as foot-holds. Arrived at his perch twenty-five feet above the sea, he surveyed the horizon.
"There's land on our port quarter, sir," he reported. "Or it may be clouds," he added dubiously.