Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/226

 The young officer on duty rang down to the engine room and instantly the great liner ceased her straining and swept almost noiselessly through the fog,—which came swirling in over her bow. At about the same instant the rain rattled down upon the bridge in volleys of icy drops.

“My gad!” exclaimed Ponsonby, spitting out a limp and dripping shilling cigar. “This is wet.”

Darkness, black, dense, impenetrable, had come with the fog, and the search-light striking against that barrier of mist and rain was thrown back and upward at arm’s length, as if a burglar’s lantern were reflected from a wall.

“Let go the whistle every ten minutes,” called down the Captain through the speaking tube, and in another moment the ship trembled to the hoarse vibration of the fog horn.

Then Ponsonby, his glistening purple face stinging with the cutting rain, his eyes burrowing fiercely into the black night, his red ears listening for every sound above the seething of the waves and the lashing of the storm, unconcernedly minding his own regular business as well as he knew how, rose in stature from be