"Look there!" said he.
A two-masted fishing boat, storm driven from the Banks to sea, swung within three or four hundred yards of them. She could see its dripping gunwale contending with the waves, the oil-skinned sailors tottering upon its deck.
"Now look there!" said von Klausen.
This time be pointed ahead, and ahead she saw, just beyond the charging prow of the imperious Friedrich, what seemed to be a thick grey curtain. It reached to the heavens and, as the liner approached it, opened like three walls: one before the prow, the other two on either side. It had all the palpability of heavy cloth.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Fog," said von Klausen, and in a moment, with the great siren of the boat shaking their very hearts, it had descended upon them.
The walls fastened. The curtains enveloped them. The thick, tangible, breath-tightening stuff wrapped them in a kind of cocoon. All the clouds of the sky seemed to have fallen. Muriel could scarcely distinguish the features of the young fellow beside her. And always, reverberating and portentous, the siren howled overhead.
"The boat!" she called into von Klausen's ear. "Isn't it odd? Only a minute ago it was there. Then I saw only its masts. Now I can't see it at all."
He called his answer.
"Once in the Bosphorus—like this—fog. I was on the prow—an express boat. We brought up a little, low ship—crowded with pilgrims. Fog—shut out—the crash—I could look down and see—faces upturned, calling. I could see them calling—could not hear. I am afraid—I am terribly afraid—of fogs."