"How about a long shot in their general direction?" wheezed Ato, who found the silence and suspense well nigh unbearable.
"No, it is not for us to start a fight," stated Samuel grimly. "But hah! Just let them start one! Fetch me my stilts, Roger, and be quick about it, too!"
"Stilts?" choked the Read Bird, dropping the blunderbuss with which he had armed, or rather winged, himself. "You'll never be trying those things again—they nearly shivered our timbers last time. Why take another chance?"
"My stilts!" repeated Samuel savagely, and Roger, who knew his duty as a sailor, flew without further argument to the hold. When Roger returned with a stilt in each claw, the Captain grasped one and moving silently as a cat over to the port rail, he thrust the long pole experimentally out into the fog. There was an instant thud, and Samuel himself got a severe jolt as the stilt struck against some firm and immovable object beyond. Convinced that it was an enemy ship, Samuel returned to the others and, drawn up in an anxious row, the four shipmates waited for the fog to lift or the first enemy seaman to leap aboard.
"I'll wager it's a derelict, or an abandoned vessel with no crew," breathed Ato, seating himself on a fire bucket to somewhat ease the long wait. The first hour Tandy stood fairly well, but the second seemed interminable. The flickering lanterns, the tense quiet, the choking fog and gentle roll of the ship all made him desperately drowsy, and, much to his later disgust, he must have finally fallen asleep. The next thing he remembered was the shrill squall of the Read Bird and the pleasant feel of the sun on his eyelids.
"The ship! The pirates! The fog!" thought Tandy, springing up wildly, but neither ship nor pirates met his astonished gaze. Abaft the beam lay a great whispering deep sea forest, its trees higher than the masts of the ship, springing directly out of the water and stretching their leafy branches to the sky. It was into one of these giant greenwoods the Crescent Moon had crashed in the fog. Samuel was staring at the sea forest with the rapt look of a scientist who has just made an unbelievable discovery, and Ato, with his elbows resting on the rail, was gazing dreamily in the same direction.
"'Hoy! Ahoy! Why, I never knew there were forests in the sea," exclaimed Tandy, running over to insinuate himself between the cook and the Captain.
"There aren't! It's just plain impossible!" breathed Ato, moving over to make room for Tandy. "But, impossible or not, there she lies. And isn't it pretty?" he mused, resting more than half of his great weight on the rail.
"I suppose Sammy'll want to dig up a sea tree and bring it along," he leaned over to whisper mischievously in Tandy's ear. "And anyway, it's better than pirates."