And what little there was,--the slapping of a few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a block or two,--was ghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed.
We had scarcely filled away, it seemed, when the fog thinned abruptly and we were again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea breaking before us to the sky-line.

But the ocean was bare.

No wrathful _Macedonia_ broke its surface nor blackened the sky with her smoke.
Wolf Larsen at once squared away and ran down along the rim of the fog-bank.

His trick was obvious.

He had entered the fog to windward of the steamer, and while the steamer had blindly driven on into the fog in the chance of catching him, he had come about and out of his shelter and was now running down to re-enter to leeward.