"Looks like fog before morning, sir."
"Hum!" muttered Captain Jason Argo, through his clinched teeth, "I shall hold our present course at least till we clear the Banks. It's 150 miles across, as we are going, and I wish soundings taken every two hours till we are across, which will be in eight hours. You will pass the word to call me when the last sounding is to be taken."
The third officer returned to the deck. At seven o'clock he made the sounding, as directed, and got a depth of thirty-two fathoms, which tallied closely enough with the Captain's calculations to show that they were correct. Steadily the Golden Fleece ploughed her way westward across the comparatively shallow waters of the Grand Banks, and at midnight, the Captain having been called, the last cast of the lead showed eighty fathoms.
"Good," said the Captain, turning his face against the damp rush of the heavy mist; "we shall run into 1500 fathoms now, and into the northerly limit of the Gulf Stream. On the whole, I think we'd better give our course an eighth more southing, and hold it at that till noon. Keep a bright lookout ahead, and keep your weather eye on the sky. If it breaks away, look sharp, and get the deviation from the first star that shows. I think we're in for a lot of thick weather."
The Captain went below and turned in, "all standing." All through the dreary night his sleep was broken by the hoarse blasts of the fog-siren and the half-hourly cries of the lookouts. He wondered whether the current of the Gulf Stream was setting true, or had perhaps been deflected by some now dead wind of which he could not possibly know anything. He had a sailor's dread of an unknown current. If he had been on soundings the trusty lead would have told him where he was, but no machine could plumb the depths now under the Golden Fleece's keel. At six o'clock the Captain went on the bridge again. The fog had disappeared, but the sky was still overcast.
"Hum!" he muttered; "it's enough to make a man give up the sea and go to farming."
Toward half past nine there were signs that the clouds were about to break, and the officers on the bridge made ready to "shoot the sun," as taking an observation is called, at the first opportunity. Presently there was a rift of blue sky, and in a few minutes the gorgeous sun broke through. The officers made their observation, but as they were still uncertain of their latitude, they could do nothing with it. At noon they were able to ascertain the latitude, and then they figured out the ship's position.
"How does our dead reckoning compare with our position by observation?" asked Captain Jason Argo.
"By dead reckoning we have made a run of 456 miles in the twenty-four hours," answered the first officer, "and our noon position was latitude 43° 34' north, longitude 54° west. By observation our position is latitude 43° 30' north, longitude 53° 54' west."
"Excellent," exclaimed the Captain; "that's close work, and shows that my current allowance was about as near right as possible. Now I wish to hit the easterly edge of George's Bank, which is in longitude 66° west, in latitude 41° 20' north. When we make that point, I'll show you my reason for doing that."