CHAPTER XXV.
LOST IN THE FOG.
After that, the fish bit fast and furiously. It seemed that the boys had nothing to do but to bait their hooks, throw them over and pull in a fish. There were all varieties, many of them strange to the two lads. Suddenly Tom’s hook was seized by something that gave a tug that almost pulled the boy out of the boat into the water.
“Wow!” yelled Tom. “I’ve got a whale!”
He twisted his line about a thwart, for whatever had caught the other end of the line almost pulled his arms out when he attempted to hold it unaided.
“You mean the whale’s got you,” shouted Jack, laughing.
But the next instant his laughter turned to a shout of dismay.
“Your whale’s running away with us.”
This was true. The creature that had hold of Tom’s line was darting off at a rapid rate and pulling the boat behind him.
They skimmed over the water at great speed, Tom enjoying the fun hugely.
“This beats motor boating,” he declared, “no engine to bother with and just as fast. Guess I’ll catch this critter when he gets tired out and introduce him at home as a new form of motive power.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Tom. Cast him off. Here’s my knife. Cut the line.”
“Why? Let’s go on a bit further,” begged Tom.
“It would be all right if your fish motor would tow us toward the White Shark, but look back there!”
Tom turned and saw the White Shark terribly far off. He thought of the long pull back to her, and his muscles fairly ached in anticipation. Hesitating no longer, he took Jack’s proffered knife and slashed the line. As he did so, a few yards ahead a huge barracuda gave a leap into the air, landing back with a mighty splash and darting off at a mile-a-minute gait.
“There, that’s what gave us a tow away out here,” declared Tom, as the huge fish, which must have weighed two or three hundred pounds, vanished. “Wouldn’t it have been great if we could have induced him to turn round and tow us back to the White Shark? I’d have begged him a bucketful of bait for the kindness.”
“Well, quit talking rot and pick up the oars,” admonished Jack.
He had been looking about him and noticing a curious effect in the atmosphere. A sort of filmy haze had grown up between them and the White Shark, almost obscuring the latter.
Tom picked up the oars, grumbling as he did so.
“Huh! I wish we’d never made fast to that fish.”
“I told you to cut loose sooner,” rejoined Jack; “just for that you’ll do some extra pulling.”
Under what sailors term an “ash breeze”—namely, the power of a pair of oars—the boat moved but slowly.
“It seems to me that we are going twice as slow as when we came out,” muttered Tom, the perspiration pouring down his face from his exertions.
“It does seem so,” agreed Jack; “maybe there is some sort of ocean current hereabouts.”
After that there was silence for a time. Tom pulled steadily while Jack looked about him at the weather. The odd mist or haze he had noticed had grown thicker. Presently the whole sea began to steam. It was as if the water was boiling and giving off great clouds of vapor.
“Crickets!” cried Jack anxiously. “We’re in for it now, Tom!”
“Why, what’s up? They’ll wait for us.”
“Yes, if we can find them. Look about you.”
Tom gave over rowing for a time and looked up.
“Gracious!” he exclaimed in dismay. “Fog!”
“Yes, that’s what it is, all right.”
“Then we’re lost!”
Tom’s voice was quavery with sudden alarm, but Jack kept a steady head.
“Now, don’t get rattled,” he admonished. “Keep cool, just as you would if you were lost in the woods.”
The haze grew momentarily thicker. In white, wraith-like folds it encompassed them, beating in softly all about them, like the waves of a vaporous sea.
“Let’s see,” mused Jack, “the White Shark lay off that way, didn’t she, when we saw her last?”
He pointed out into the steamy white smother.
“But are you sure she did?” asked Tom, whose pluck was coming back now that the first shock was over.
“Almost certain. At any rate, we’ll pull in that direction. Give me one oar and you take the other; we shall get along faster so.”
With one boy at each oar the boat did get through the mist faster. They pulled till they were fairly exhausted, but at last Jack paused.
“If we are coming in the right direction the White Shark must be close at hand now,” he declared. “Let’s try shouting.”
The boys yelled and shouted with full lung power, but no answering shout came back out of the mist. At last they were compelled to give in. Their throats were raw and cracked from their vocal exercise.
They exchanged blank looks.
“Well?” demanded Tom flatly.
“There’s no use blinking the fact, Tom,” was Jack’s rejoinder, “we are lost.”
“Can’t we do anything?”
“Nothing, except make the best of it, like the Indian who was found wandering about by a party of hunters. ‘Are you lost?’ they asked him. ‘No,’ replied the noble red man, ‘me not lost, wigwam lost.’ That’s about the way we’ve got to look at our situation, Tom, old boy.”
Jack tried hard to make his voice cheerful and confident, but somehow Tom did not smile at his companion’s story. And all about them the fog shut in ever closer and closer.