very good luck before the accident befell us. I
s'pose, Captain, you didn't see anything of a fog last night, did you?"

"No; we must have been well outside of it."

"Two steamers passed us before the fog set in, and of course they had no
trouble keeping clear of the fleet. Yesterday afternoon I slipped away
to the southward of the rest of them, some half a dozen miles, following
a school of fish, and all of a sudden I saw the fog coming up. I made up
my mind that there wasn't any use of going back, and so I lay to right
where I was. The fog came down thicker than cheese, and not long
afterward the heavy swell set in from the southward and eastward, and I
knew there was weather brewing. So I had all the dories got aboard and
stowed amidships. The swell kept on increasing, and the fog was so thick
you couldn't see the length of the schooner. It was just after three
bells in the midwatch when I heard a yell from my lookout. Before I
could tumble out of my bunk there was a tremendous thump that threw me
half-way across my cabin. I jumped on deck just in time to see the huge
black hull of a steamer towering above us. She slipped away into the
fog, and was gone. There were a few shouts from her deck, but we neither
saw nor heard any more of her.

"I sprang forward to see what damage had been done. I found my little
schooner had been mortally hurt, gentlemen, and that's a fact. The
foremast, as you must have noticed, had been snapped off about ten feet
above the deck, and had carried a lot of our rig with it. But that was
not all. The wreckage from aloft had fallen so that something--the
foretopmast, I suppose--had smashed our dories into kindling wood. I
sent my mate below, and he came back with the report that we were taking
in water through half a dozen seams forward. I set two hands at work to
try to stop the leaks, while the rest of us cleared away some of the
wreckage. Meanwhile the swell had increased so that we were rolling
dreadfully, and there was great danger that some one would be hurt by
the loose timbers. I'm thankful, however, that we escaped that
misfortune. Toward daylight the wind rose and blew the fog off. I saw
that we were in for a blow, and I decided to run toward the land as long
as I dared. I set the canvas that you saw, and started her off ahead of
the gale. All hands were sent to the pumps, but in spite of our hardest
work the water gained on us. The gale increased and the sea rose, and
then I foun