"The fog is as thick as mud in a wine-glass," exclaimed Captain Layard. "Some go fast and some go slow through these smothers. The fast man holds that a ship is under more immediate control when travelling; I am a slow man when I can't see. In fact," he continued, with a look of exaltation, with a smile of profound self-complacency, "I claim to know my business. There is no man afloat who is going to teach me what to do when a thing is to be done, and done properly."
"If all ships would heave to," said Hardy, witnessing the captain's mind in the expression which subtly interpreted it, "then it would be the right thing in a fog to stop your engines, or back your topsail. But it's the other fellow you can't see that makes the fear." He immediately added, "Your dog is extraordinarily sagacious, sir."
"It amused me to train him," replied the captain, smoothing Johnny's little hand as it lay upon the table. "There is no fog-horn which equals the screams of an irritated sow. A sow once saved me from a collision by causing a dog, in an invisible ship close aboard on the starboard bow, to bark. That put the idea into my head. Sailor has the voice of a trombone, and he didn't need much training either; he is now perched between the knight-heads with more searching eyes and clearer ears than the whole ship's company could put together if they made their heads into one."
Hardy laughed.
"Don't forget Sailor's supper, father," said Johnny.
"I'll not forget," answered the captain.
As he spoke the words the man who waited on the cabin came down the steps.
"Is it still very thick?" asked the captain.
"Blinding, sir," was the answer.
"Get the dog's supper, and take it to him on the fok'sle," said Captain Layard. "See that he has water; it may be an all-night job for him. Pearson was a very humane man," he went on, addressing Hardy. "I might guess that by the medicine-chest he's left me. I overhauled it before we sailed, and wondered at the quantity of sleeping and death stuffs it contained. I found out that in one of his passages home from Calcutta several men died of cholera, and he was at his wits' ends for drugs. Ships bound to India should always carry a surgeon; they would—they must, if there are passengers. But glauber salts are good things for Jack: 'tis an all-round physic, as good for smallpox as for indigestion." He laughed somewhat heartily, and continued, "Pearson's men might have died to a man, for his medicine-chest showed badly like the end of a long voyage. Fortunately half of them took it into their heads to live, and they got the ship home. After this Pearson never went to sea without plenty of drink for cholera. He's left some doctor's handbook on the diseases of sailors, and there's a volume on poisons full of pencil marks. His humanity was unwearying, but he got the sack all the same. Johnny, my darling, it's time for bed. Come along, my lamb."