LITMIR.BIZ

      “Nancy’s the best hand with the lead. John takes the tiller. Slow ahead, Roger!”

      “Aye, aye, Sir.”

      The Sea Bear began to move again as the engine changed its tune.

      “West and a half north, John, and as steady as you can.”

      “West and a half north it is.”

      “But what are we going to do?” said Dorothea.

      “We’re going in,” said Nancy, taking the lead and its line out of a locker in the cockpit.

      “If we can,” said Captain Flint.

      The coast had disappeared altogether. The square-topped hill had been swallowed up. The chug … chug … chug of the engine was driving the Sea Bear slowly forward into a wall of white wool.

      The boy high above the cliff had seen the mist coming. It had filled the valley and hidden the deer he had been watching. He felt a cold breath on his forehead. The wind was changing. He had written up his diary for the day and eaten all he meant to eat of the cake he had brought with him. A faint sound of bagpipes was calling him home. He put his diary and what was left of his cake in the biscuit box he used as a safe, pushed it well out of sight at the back of his private hiding-place and, as the mist reached him, set out carefully to pick his way among the rocks and heather. No one on land saw the Sea Bear lower her sails. No one heard the quiet throb of her engine as she crept slowly on towards the cliff.

CHAPTER II

      FEELING HER WAY IN

      THE WHOLE FEELING of the day had changed. This was no longer careless summer sailing. The wall of mist was moving to meet them. John, steering, was watching the compass as if his life depended on keeping the needle steady. Everybody was on the alert, waiting for orders, knowing that there must be no mistakes and that if anything needed doing it would need doing at once. The hatch over the engine room was open. Roger, his eyes sparkling, was standing by, his hands hovering over the controls. The mist rolled over the Sea Bear, and from the cockpit it was hard to see the little flag at the masthead. A clanking of iron told that Nancy and Captain Flint, grey ghosts on the foredeck, were making ready the anchor.

      Captain Flint came aft and glanced at the compass.

      “Keep her going as she is, John,” he said.

      “West and a half north,” said John.

      “We want someone at the cross-trees … Dick … no … I forgot your glasses.” (Dick was cleaning his dimmed spectacles.) “Peggy. I may want Susan to lend a hand with the anchor. Nancy’ll be busy from now on. Everybody else, keep your eyes skinned and sing out the moment you see anything. Anything. Don’t wait till you are sure what it is. Sing out if you see anything at all. Roger, stand by to stop her at once and go astern if I shout.”

      “Aye, aye, Sir,” said Roger.

      “Titty. Nip below and bring up that tin of tallow for the lead. Fo’c’sle. Starboard side, top shelf.”

      “Aye, aye, Sir.” Titty was gone.

      “Chug … chug … chug … chug …”

      The Sea Bear moved on in a white world of her own.

      “It’s like being a caterpillar inside a cocoon,” thought Dick, hurriedly wiping his spectacles, putting them on and trying to see, not quite sure whether or not the mist was on his spectacles as well as all about him.

      Nancy, at the starboard shrouds, a lifeline round her made fast to the rigging, so that she could use both hands without fear of falling overboard, was getting ready to swing the lead. Now, now … The lead dangled three feet or more below her right hand, the big coil of the lead-line, with its marks at every fathom, in her left. She was swinging the lead, fore and aft, in wider and wider swings. She was whirling it over and over, round and again and away … She had let go of it and the lead was flying out ahead of the ship. Nobody aboard could do that as well as she. Dick could see her feeling for it as the ship caught it up, dipping, as if she were fishing with a handline.