OUT AT SEA.
The Ghost came up in the wind, and the sails were dropped and furled. "Now," resumed Charley, "I want you to keep cool, and not to let yourselves get frightened. The truth is, boys, that we are out at sea."
"But we can't be," cried Harry. "There isn't any inlet."
"There must be an inlet," Charley replied, "and we've drifted out through it. This swell is the swell of the Atlantic. It's impossible to have anything like it in a little shallow bay."
"What shall we do?" asked the boys, all together.
"We can't do anything till the fog lifts, and we find out where we are. The compass is gone, we don't know which way the wind is, and we can't even hear the surf. The only thing to do is to wait for clear weather."
While they were talking, the sea had begun to break into white caps, and Charley ordered the mainsail to be set close reefed. "If we don't get some sail on her," he explained, "we shall have the water coming aboard."
"But we may be running further away from the land all the time," said Harry.
"Very likely; but we can't help ourselves, for we must keep steerage-way on her, and keep her from getting swamped. We'll sail as close to the wind as we can. If the wind is southwest, and if we keep it on our port bow, we shall be drifting in toward the shore, and if it's blowing from some other direction, we sha'n't be making headway enough to do much harm."