At six in the morning the skipper came with a grin and beckoned Mr.Blair into the crew's cabin.
"I pretended to laugh, sir," said he, "but it's not quite laughing now.
The fog's coming over, and we're just going into cloud after cloud of it.

Don't let either of the ladies peep up again on any account.

I'm afeared o' nothing but collision, but it's regular blind man's holiday when one o' them comes down." "I'll see my sister right, Freeman, and I'll come and try if I can have a peep from your ladder." Then Blair saw a thing which always seems more impressive than anything else that can be witnessed at sea--except, perhaps, a snowstorm.

A mysterious portent came rolling onward; afar off it looked like a pale grey wall of inconceivable height, but as it drew nearer, the wall resolved itself into a wild array of columns, and eddies, and whirlpools, and great full-bosomed clouds, that rolled and swam and rose and fell with maddening complexity.

Then came a breath of deadly chillness, and then a horror of great darkness--a darkness that could be felt.