, fog or no fog, merchant vessels
must run. To-day they seemed to be running in battalions and brigades,
judging from the howling, yelping, and snorting of their steam whistles
here, there, and everywhere.

But the _Rapier_ managed to avoid them somehow, and, shortly before
noon, having heard the explosive fog signal on the end of the
breakwater, she slid slowly past the lighthouse at the entrance and
groped her way into the harbour. It was still as thick as it possibly
could be, but she found the collier, and, after completing with coal,
secured to her buoy.

Ten minutes later Langdon and the Sub were talking together in the
little wardroom when there came a knock at the door.

"Signal just come through, sir," the signalman announced with a smile
on his face. "_Rapier_ will proceed to Portsmouth at daylight
to-morrow to refit. She will not be required for patrol to-night."

The ship was long overdue for the dockyard, but the skipper and
Pettigrew looked at each other, hardly able to believe their ears.

"Lord!" muttered the former. "That means a week's leave, Sub. D'you
realise that?"

"Do I not, sir!" answered the Sub-Lieutenant, as the signalman retired
with a grin.

THE TRADERS

We were steaming to the westward, towards the spot where the sun,
glowing like a disc of molten copper, was slowly nearing the horizon.
It had been one of those hot, breathless sort of days with no breeze;
and now, near sunset, nothing but an occasional cat's-paw stole gently
across the sea to ruffle its glassy surface in irregular-shaped
patches. Elsewhere, the water, shining like a mirror, reflected the
blazing glory of the sky.

Some distance off lay the coast, its familiar outline dim, purple, and
mysterious in the evening mist. But it was neither the sunset,
glorious as it was, nor the scenery which held our imagination. It was
the shipping.

All manner of craft there were. First came the _Spurt_, of Tromso, a
Norwegian tramp of dissolute and chastened appearance, whose
deliberate, plodding gait and general air of senility belied her name,
or at any rate the English meaning of it. Her rusty black hull was
decorated with three large squares painted in her national colours,
red, with a vertical white-edged stripe of blue in the centre. Next a
bulbous, prosperous-looking Dutchman, who seemed to waddle in her, or
his, stride. She was slightly faster than the ancient _Spurt_, but was
no flyer, and boasted a c