ersation, laid his hand upon the shoulder of the Parisian.

"Silence, sir," he said. "Keep a watch upon your words. We are upon the
sea."

No one spoke again aloud.

After a pause of five minutes, the Guernsey man, who had heard all this,
whispered in the ear of the St. Malo passenger:

"A religious man, our captain."

It did not rain, but all felt their clothing wet. The crew took no heed
of the way they were making; but there was increased sense of
uneasiness. They seemed to have entered into a doleful region. The fog
makes a deep silence on the sea; it calms the waves, and stifles the
wind. In the midst of this silence, the creaking of the Durande
communicated a strange, indefinable feeling of melancholy and
disquietude.

They passed no more vessels. If afar off, in the direction of Guernsey
or in that of St. Malo, any vessels were at sea outside the fog, the
Durande, submerged in the dense cloud, must have been invisible to them;
while her long trail of smoke attached to nothing, looked like a black
comet in the pale sky.

Suddenly Clubin roared out:

"Hang-dog! you have played us an ugly trick. You will have done us some
damage before we are out of this. You deserve to be put in irons. Get
you gone, drunkard!"

And he seized the helm himself.

The steersman, humbled, shrunk away to take part in the duties forward.

The Guernsey man said:

"That will save us."

The vessel was still making way rapidly.

Towards three o'clock, the lower part of the fog began to clear, and
they could see the sea again.

A mist can only be dispersed by the sun or the wind. By the sun is well;
by the wind is not so well. At three o'clock in the afternoon, in the
month of February, the sun is always weak. A return of the wind at this
critical point in a voyage is not desirable. It is often the forerunner
of a hurricane.

If there was any breeze, however, it was scarcely perceptible.

Clubin with his eye on the binnacle, holding the tiller and steering,
muttered to himself some words like the following, which reached the
ears of the passengers:

"No time to be lost; that drunken rascal has retarded us."

His visage, meanwhile, was absolutely without expression.

The sea was less calm under the mist. A few waves were distinguishable.
Little patches of light appeared on the surface of the water. These
luminous patches attract the attention of the sailors. They indicate
openings made by the wind in the overhanging r