The anxiety of the officers had not as yet communicated itself to the passengers; those who had been most nervous in the ordinary onset of wind and wave looked upon the fog as a phenomenon whose only disturbance might be delay.  To Miss Keene this conveyed no annoyance; rather that placid envelopment of cloud soothed her fancy; she submitted herself to its soft embraces, and to the mysterious onward movement of the ship, as if it were part of a youthful dream.  Once she thought of the ship of Sindbad, and that fatal loadstone mountain, with an awe that was, however, half a pleasure.

“You are not frightened, Miss Keene?” said a voice near her.

She started slightly.  It was the voice of Mr. Hurlstone.  So thick was the fog that his face and figure appeared to come dimly out of it, like a part of her dreaming fancy.  Without replying to his question, she said quickly,—­

“You are better then, Mr. Hurlstone?  We—­we were all so frightened for you.”

An angry shadow crossed his thin face, and he hesitated.  After a pause he recovered himself, and said,—­

“I was saying you were taking all this very quietly.  I don’t think there’s much danger myself.  And if we should go ashore here”—­

“Well?” suggested Miss Keene, ignoring this first intimation of danger in her surprise at the man’s manner.

“Well, we should all be separated only a few days earlier, that’s all!”

More frightened at the strange bitterness of his voice than by the sense of physical peril, she was vaguely moving away towards the dimly outlined figures of her companions when she was arrested by a voice forward.  There was a slight murmur among the passengers.

“What did he say?” asked Miss Keene, “What are ’Breakers ahead’?”

Hurlstone did not reply.

“Where away?” asked a second voice.

The murmur still continuing, Captain Bunker’s hoarse voice pierced the gloom,—­“Silence fore and aft!”

The first voice repeated faintly,—­

“On the larboard bow.”

There was another silence.  Again the voice repeated, as if mechanically,—­

“Breakers!”

“Where away?”

“On the starboard beam.”

“We are in some passage or channel,” said Hurlstone quietly.

The young girl glanced round her and saw for the first time that, in one of those inexplicable movements she had not understood, the other passengers had been withdrawn into a limited space of the deck, as if through some authoritative orders, while she and her companion had been evidently overlooked.  A couple of sailors, who had suddenly taken their positions by the quarter-boats, strengthened the accidental separation.

“Is there some one taking care of you?” he asked, half hesitatingly; “Mr. Brace—­Perkins—­or”—­

“No,” she replied quickly.  “Why?”

“Well, we are very near the boat in an emergency, and you might allow me to stay here and see you safe in it.”