Page:In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories.djvu/257

Rh up the pace till the fog shut down again. The captain now, in pacing the bridge, had his chronometer in his hand, and those of us who were at the front frequently looked at our watches, for of course the nautical passenger knew just how late it was possible for us to cross the bar.

"I am afraid," said the passenger, "he is not going to succeed." But, as he said this, the fog lifted for the third time, and again the mammoth steamer forged ahead.

"If this clearance will only last for ten minutes," said the nautical passenger, "we are all right." But the fog, as if it had heard him, closed down on us again damper and thicker than ever.

"We are just at the bar," said the nautical passenger, "and if this doesn't clear up pretty soon the vessel will have to go back."

The captain kept his eyes fixed on the chronometer in his hand. The pilot tried to peer ahead, but everything was a thick white blank.

"Ten minutes more and it is too late," said the nautical passenger.

There was a sudden rift in the fog that gave a moment's hope, but it closed down again. A minute afterward, with a suddenness that was strange, the whole blue ocean lay before us. Then full steam ahead. The fog still was thick behind us in