“Why, it’s clear enough.”

“Clear?  Then let me tell you that when you see a atmosphere like this here, then you may expect to see it any moment changed into deep, thick fog.  Any moment—­five minutes ’ll be enough to snatch everything from sight, and bury us all in the middle of a unyversal fog bank.”

“What’ll we do?”

“Dew?  That’s jest the question.”

“Can we go on?”

“Wal—­without wind—­I don’t exactly see how.  In a fog a wind is not without its advantages.  That’s one of the times when the old Antelope likes to have her sails up; but as we hain’t got no wind, I don’t think we’ll do much.”

“Will you stay here at anchor?”

“At anchor?  Course not.  No, sir.  Moment the tide falls again, I’ll drift down so as to clear that pint there,—­Cape Chignecto,—­ then anchor; then hold on till tide rises; and then drift up.  Mebbe before that the wind ’ll spring up, an give us a lift somehow up the bay.”

“How long before the tide will turn?”

“Wal, it’ll be high tide at about a quarter to eight this evenin, I calc’late.”

“You’ll drift in the night, I suppose.”

“Why not?”

“O, I didn’t know but what the fog and the night together might be too much for you.”

“Too much?  Not a bit of it.  Fog, and night, and snow-storms, an tide dead agin me, an a lee shore, are circumstances that the Antelope has met over an over, an fit down.  As to foggy nights, when it’s as calm as this, why, they’re not wuth considerin.”

Captain Corbet’s prognostication as to the fog proved to be correct.  It was only for a short time that they were allowed to stare at the magnified proportions of the Nova Scotia coast and Ile Haute.  Then a change took place which attracted all their attention.

The change was first perceptible down the bay.  It was first made manifest by the rapid appearance of a thin gray cloud along the horizon, which seemed to take in both sea and sky, and absorbed into itself the outlines of both.  At the same time, the coast of Nova Scotia grew more obscure, though it lost none of its magnified proportions, while the slaty blue of Ile Haute changed to a grayer shade.

This change was rapid, and was followed by other changes.  The thin gray cloud, along the south-west horizon, down the bay, gradually enlarged itself; till it grew to larger and loftier proportions.  In a quarter of an hour it had risen to the dimensions of the Nova Scotia coast.  In a half an hour it was towering to double that height.  In an hour its lofty crest had ascended far up into the sky.

“It’s a comin,” said Captain Corbet.  “I knowed it.  Grind away, you old fog mill!  Pile on the steam, you Grand Mananers!”

“Is there any wind down there?”

“Not a hooter.”

“Is the fog coming up without any wind?”

“Course it is.  What does the fog want of wind?”