“Try a hail,” cried Rogers from the stern. “We may be chasing the wrong boat!”
“Cutter 'hoy!” bellowed the man beside Stringer, using his hands in lieu of a megaphone—“heave to!”
“Give 'em 'in the King's name!'” directed Rogers again.
“Cutter 'hoy,” roared the man through his trumpeted hands,—“heave to—in the King's name!”
Stringer glared through the fog, clutching at the shoulder of the shouter almost convulsively.
“Take no notice, sir,” reported the man.
“Then it's the gang!” cried Rogers from the stern; “and we haven't made a mistake. Where the blazes are we?”
“Well on the way to Blackwall Reach, sir,” answered someone. “Fog lifting ahead.”
“It's the rain that's doing it,” said the man beside Stringer.
Even as he spoke, a drop of rain fell upon the back of Stringer's hand. This was the prelude; then, with ever-increasing force, down came the rain in torrents, smearing out the fog from the atmosphere, as a painter, with a sponge, might wipe a color from his canvas. Long tails of yellow vapor, twining—twining—but always coiling downward, floated like snakes about them; and the oily waters of the Thames became pock-marked in the growing light.