lace. There was an absolute
silence at last, as though all had crept stealthily away, having left us,
lost and solitary, in the fog. We felt confident there would be a
clearance soon, so but shrouded our navigation lights. But the rampart
of fog grew higher, veiled the moon, blotted it out, expunged the last
and highest star. We were imprisoned. We lay till morning, and there
was only the fog, and ourselves, and a bell-buoy somewhere which tolled
dolefully.

And morning was but a weak infiltration into our prison. A steadfast
inspection was necessary to mark even the dead water overside. The River
was the same colour as the fog. For a fortnight we had been without
rest. We had become used to a little home which was unstable, and
sometimes delirious, and a sky that was always falling, and an earth that
rose to meet the collapse. Here we were on a dead level, still and
silent, with the men whispering, and one felt inclined to reel with
giddiness. We were fixed to a dumb, unseen river of a world that was
blind.

There was one movement. It was that of the leisurely motes of the fog.
We watched them--there was nothing else to do--for a change of wind. A
change did not seem likely, for the rigging was hoar with frost, and ice
glazed our deck.

Sometimes the fog would seem to rise a few feet. It was a cruel
deception to play on the impatient. A mere cork, a tiny dark object like
that, drifting along some distance out, would make a focal point in the
fog, and would give the illusion of a clearance. Once, parading the deck
as the man on watch, giving an occasional shake to the bell, I went
suddenly happy with the certainty that I was now to be the harbinger of
good tidings to those below playing cards. A vague elevated line
appeared to starboard. I watched it grow into definition, a coast
showing through a haze that was now dissolving. Up they all tumbled at
my shout. They stared at the wonder hopefully and silently. The coast
became higher and darker, and the skipper was turning to give orders--and
then our hope turned into a wide path on the ebbing River made by cinders
moving out on the tide. The cinders passed. We re-entered our silent
tomb. There had been no sign of our many neighbours of the night before,
but suddenly we heard some dreadful moans, the tentative efforts of a
body surprised by pain, and these sounds shaped, hilariously lachrymose,
into a steam hooter playing "Auld Lang Syne," and t