Captain Wass hooked a gnarled finger into the loop of the bell-pull and
yanked upward viciously. A dull clang sounded far below. He pulled again
and the vibration of the engine ceased.
"Gad rabbit it! I'll go the whole hog as the department orders! If he
bangs into me we'll see who comes off best at the hearing."
He gave the bell-loop two quick jerks; then he shifted his hand to
another pull and the jingle bell sounded in the engine-room--the
Nequasset was ordered to make full speed astern.
The freighter shook and shivered when the screw began to reverse,
pulling at the frothing sea, clawing frantically to haul her to a stop.
The skipper then gave three resentful, protesting whistle-blasts.
But the reply he received from ahead was a hoarse, prolonged howl. In
it there was no hint that the big fellow proposed to heed the protest
of the three blasts. It was insistence on right of way, the insolence of
the swaggering express liner making time in competition with rivals; it
hinted confident opinion that smaller chaps would better get out of the
way.
The on-comer had received a signal which served to justify that opinion.
Captain Wass had docilely announced that he was going full speed astern,
his whistle-blasts had declared that he had stepped off the sidewalk
of the ocean lane--as usual! The big fellows knew that the little chaps
would do it!
Mate Mayo leaned from the window, his jaw muscles tense, anxiety in his
eyes.
The big whistle now was fairly shaking the curtains of the mists and was
not giving him any comforting assurance that the liner was swinging to
avoid them.
The quartermaster was taking the situation more philosophically than his
superiors. He hummed: Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro,
She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord let her go!
"Does that gor-righteously fool ahead there think I blowed three
whistles to salute Marston's birthday or their last dividend, Mr. Mayo?"
shouted Captain Wass.
Fogs are freaky; ocean mists are often eerie in movements. There are
strata, there are eddying air-currents which rend the curtain or shred
the massing vapors. The men in the pilot-house of the Nequasset
suddenly found their range of vision widened. The fog did not clear; it
became more tenuous and showed an area of the sea. It was like a thin
veil which disclosed dimly what it distorted and magnified.
In a fog, experienced steamboat men always examine with earnest gaze
the line where fog and ocean merge. They do not stare up into the fog,
trying to distinguish the loom of an on-coming craft; they are able
to discern first of all the white line of foam marking the vessel's
cutwater kick-up or her wake.