CAPTAIN CLUBIN DISPLAYS ALL HIS GREAT QUALITIES
Everybody turned.
It was the captain calling to the helmsman.
Sieur Clubin’s tone and manner evidenced that he was extremely angry, or that he wished to appear so.
A well-timed burst of anger sometimes removes responsibility, and sometimes shifts it on to other shoulders.
The captain, standing on the bridge between the two paddle-boxes, fixed his eyes on the helmsman. He repeated, between his teeth, “Drunkard.” The unlucky Tangrouille hung his head.
The fog had made progress. It filled by this time nearly one-half of the horizon. It seemed to advance from every quarter at the same time. There is something in a fog of the nature of a drop of oil upon the water. It enlarged insensibly. The light wind moved it onward slowly and silently. By little and little it took possession of the ocean. It was coming chiefly from the north-west, dead ahead: the ship had it before her prow, like a line of cliff moving vast and vague. It rose from the sea like a wall. There was an exact point where the wide waters entered the fog, and were lost to sight.
This line of the commencement of the fog was still above half-a-league distant. The interval was visibly growing less and less. The Durande made way; the fog made way also. It was drawing nearer to the vessel, while the vessel was drawing nearer to it.
Clubin gave the order to put on more steam, and to hold off the coast.
Thus for some time they skirted the edge of the fog; but still it advanced. The vessel, meanwhile, sailed in broad sunlight.