“Hold on!” called the Captain.
“I’m holding on!” screamed back Frank, trying his best to pierce the fog with his eyes.
“No, no! I’ll hold on and you get up anchor and pull for me—that will be the better way—and we’ll keep together till we get in somewhere.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” yelled Frank, wondering what in the world made Captain Green get around on the other side of him.
“Confound the boy!” thought the man in a rage. “I wonder how he got outside of me without my knowing it.”
Now it so happened that neither boat had changed position since the fishing station had been chosen. Frank toiled at the anchor line and pulled the boat out to it and lifted it on board, then took up his oars and rowed a few strokes. Hearing nothing from Captain Green, he paused and gave a call.
“Here; this way—row this way,” responded the Captain.
“All right; I’m coming,” gleefully from Frank, reached his ears; and then he listened, thinking it quite time he should hear the oar-strokes of the advancing boat. Meanwhile Frank peered cautiously at the veil of fog, trying to discern the outline of his friend’s boat and feeling very glad to know that it was there somewhere near him, even though he could not see it.
“Where are you?” from Captain Green, boomed against the bank of fog. He called again—he shouted—he roared; and Frank, hearing the faintest note of it, kept on rowing in the direction whence the sound seemed to come. Poor Frank was following the voice of Echo, instead of the warm, palpitating notes that the half-distracted Captain sent after him; he was rowing after the phantom voice that lured him farther and farther away from the land.
“It’s time I got to him; I’m sure it is,” thought Frank, no suspicion of the truth entering his mind. Gaily he accosted his neighbor. “Ring the school-bell, Captain, and I will come,” he called, and seemed to hear, in response, a knell of sound, as of some deep, far-away fog-bell booming solemnly.