The next day a bright silvery fog hung over the sea, yet so dense that no eye could pierce the bowsprit’s length through it. The engines were therefore put at half their power, yet even then the vessel went nearly seven knots through the water.
The lads were delighted with the smooth, easy way in which the vessel glided on. They remarked it to Cousin Giles.
“You think it is very pleasant, because you see no danger, my dear boys,” he answered. “Much the same aspect does vice bear to the young, while they shrink with fear from the storm of adversity. Now, ‘a wise seaman dreads a calm near a coast where there are currents, and a fog far more than heavy gales of wind in the open ocean.’ Put that down in your log,—it is worth remembering, as the lesson you have learned from a calm and a fog.”
Chapter Two.
Cousin Giles finds an old Shipmate—Tom Puffing’s Account of the Wreck of the Victoria—Miraculous Escape of Part of the Crew—God’s merciful Providence displayed—Cousin Giles converses with the Crew—First Sight of Denmark, Elsinore, and its Castle—View of Copenhagen—Description of the Battle and its Cause—Sunday Service on board Ship—Voyage up the Baltic—The Gulf of Finland—Cronstadt and its Batteries—Why the British did not take them—The Czar’s Mode of Manning a Ship in a Hurry—The Russian Fleet—Leave their Steamer and proceed towards Saint Petersburg.
Cousin Giles soon found his way forward, over the bales of cotton and piles of hay, followed by Fred and Harry, and entered into conversation with the crew. He had not been long there when an old weather-beaten seaman put his head up the fore hatchway. “Ah! Tom Pulling. I thought that I had caught sight of the face of an old shipmate,” exclaimed Cousin Giles, stretching out his hand. “How fares it with you?”
The old man’s countenance brightened as he returned the grasp warmly.
“Is it you, indeed? I am glad to see you—that I am,” he answered. “I’ve a good berth now, though I’ve had knocking about enough since I sailed with you last in the Juno. I was cast away in these very parts some time back, and never had a narrower chance of losing my life, so to speak.”