Suddenly the officer at the sounding-machine away aft sung out, "Twenty-one fathoms, sir!"
"Right slap into the twenty-one-fathom hole, and heading straight for Monmouth Beach, as I live!" growled Captain Jason Argo, and he sharply ordered the helmsman, "Hard a port! Hard over!"
The Golden Fleece swung her black prow northward through the fog, and when it pointed due north by compass the Captain told the helmsman to keep it so.
HE ORDERED THE VESSEL STOPPED AND LET GO THE ANCHOR.
"We'll be up with the Sandy Hook Light-ship soon," he said; "we fell about seven miles to the south of it. Keep the lead going. That's my motto—log, lead, and lookout in thick weather. If we hadn't kept up our soundings we'd have gone on the Jersey shore. Get the port anchor ready."
A little over an hour later the lookout forward reported the Sandy Hook Light-ship close to the starboard bow.
"Hard a starboard!" said the Captain; and as the ship swung round and the light-ship faded away into the mist again, he ordered the vessel to be stopped and let go the anchor. The fog-whistle ceased to blow, and the bell took its place as a warning. The Captain went down off the bridge, and made his appearance at the luncheon-table.
"Captain Argo," said an impatient old lady, "I'd like to know why we are anchored here in a fog out in the middle of the ocean. I've paid to be taken to New York, and I don't wish to stop here."
"My dear madam," replied the Captain, "up on the coast of Maine the steamboat captains run in fogs from point to point among the islands by timing their craft and then listening for the echo of the whistle from the rocks. And there was once a schooner captain who went from Cape Ann to Quarantine in New York Bay in a fog without seeing a single thing, steering from one whistling-buoy or fog-horn to another. Now I'm only a plain sea navigator, and having brought my ship safely from the other side of the Grand Banks to this side of Sandy Hook Light-ship with only one observation, feeling my way the rest of the time with the lead, I'm satisfied now to come to anchor, wait till the fog lifts, and then let a pilot see whether he can get me up the Lower Bay in clear weather without running me aground."