Lost in the Fog

VI.

Tom adrift.—The receding Shores.—The Paddle.—The Roar of Surf—The Fog Horn.—The Thunder of the unseen Breakers.—A Horror of great Darkness.—Adrift in Fog and Night.

When the boat in which Tom was darted down the stream, he at first felt paralyzed by utter terror; but at length rousing himself, he looked around. As the boat drifted on, his first impulse was to stop it; and in order to do this it was necessary to find an oar. The oar which Captain Corbet had used to scull the boat to the schooner had been thrown on board of the latter, so that the contents of the boat might be passed up the more conveniently. Tom knew this, but he thought that there might be another oar on board. A brief examination sufficed to show him that there was nothing of the kind. A few loose articles lay at the bottom; over these was the sail which Captain Corbet had bought in the ship-yard, and on this was the box of pilot-bread. That was all. There was not a sign of an oar, or a board, or anything of the kind.

No sooner had he found out this than he tried to tear off one of the seats of the boat, in the hope of using this as a paddle. But the seats were too firmly fixed to be loosened by his hands, and, after a few frantic but ineffectual efforts, he gave up the attempt.

But he could not so quickly give up his efforts to save himself. There was the box of biscuit yet. Taking his knife from his pocket, he succeeded in detaching the cover of the box, and then, using this as a paddle, he sought with frantic efforts to force the boat nearer to the shore. But the tide was running very swiftly, and the cover was only a small bit of board, so that his efforts seemed to have but little result. He did indeed succeed in turning the boat's head around; but this act, which was not accomplished without the severest labor, did not seem to bring her nearer to the shore to any perceptible extent. What he sought to do was to achieve some definite motion to the boat, which might drag her out of the grasp of the swift current; but that was the very thing which he could not do, for so strong was that grasp, and so swift was that current, that even an oar would have scarcely accomplished what he wished. The bit of board, small, and thin, and frail, and wielded with great difficulty and at a fearful disadvantage, was almost useless.

But, though he saw that he was accomplishing little or nothing, he could not bring himself to give up this work. It seemed his only hope; and so he labored on, sometimes working with both hands at the board, sometimes plying his frail paddle with one hand, and using the other hand at a vain endeavor to paddle in the water. In his desperation he kept on, and thought that if he gained ever so little, still, by keeping hard at work, the little that he gained might finally tell upon the direction of the boat—at any rate, so long as it might be in the river. He knew that the river ran for some miles yet, and that some time still remained before he would reach the bay.

Thus Tom toiled on, half despairing, and nearly fainting with his frenzied exertion, yet still refusing to give up, but plying his frail paddle until his nerveless arms seemed like weights of lead, and could scarce carry the board through the water. But the result, which at the outset, and in the very freshness of his strength, had been but trifling, grew less and less against the advance of his own weakness and the force of that tremendous tide, until at last his feeble exertions ceased to have any appreciable effect whatever.

There was no moon, but it was light enough for him to see the shores—to see that he was in the very centre of that rapid current, and to perceive that he was being borne past those dim shores with fearful velocity. The sight filled him with despair, but his arms gained a fresh energy, from time to time, out of the very desperation of his soul. He was one of those natures which are too obstinate to give up even in the presence of despair itself; and which, even when hope is dead, still forces hope to linger, and struggles on while a particle of life or of strength remains. So, as he toiled on, and fought on, against this fate which had suddenly fixed itself upon him, he saw the shores on either side recede, and knew that every passing moment was bearing him on to a wide, a cruel, and a perilous sea. He took one hasty glance behind him, and saw what he knew to be the mouth of the river close at hand; and beyond this a waste of waters was hidden in the gloom of night. The sight lent new energy to his fainting limbs. He called aloud for help. Shriek after shriek burst from him, and rang wildly, piercingly, thrillingly upon the air of night. But those despairing shrieks came to no human ear, and met with no response. They died away upon the wind and the waters; and the fierce tide, with swifter flow, bore him onward.

The last headland swept past him; the river and the river bank were now lost to him. Around him the expanse of water grew darker, and broader, and more terrible. Above him the stars glimmered more faintly from the sky. But the very habit of exertion still remained, and his faint plunges still dipped the little board into the water; and a vague idea of saving himself was still uppermost in his mind. Deep down in that stout heart of his was a desperate resolution never to give up while strength lasted; and well he sustained that determination. Over him the mist came floating, borne along by the wind which sighed around him; and that mist gradually overspread the scene upon which his straining eyes were fastened. It shut out the overhanging sky. It extinguished the glimmering stars. It threw a veil over the receding shores. It drew its folds around him closer and closer, until at last everything was hidden from view. Closer and still closer came the mist, and thicker and ever thicker grew its dense folds, until at last even the water, into which he still thrust his frail paddle, was invisible. At length his strength failed utterly. His hands refused any longer to perform their duty. The strong, indomitable will remained, but the power of performing the dictates of that will was gone. He fell back upon the sail that lay in the bottom of the boat, and the board fell from his hands.

And now there gathered around the prostrate figure of the lost boy all the terrors of thickest darkness. The fog came, together with the night, shrouding all things from view, and he was floating over a wide sea, with an impenetrable wall of thickest darkness closing him in on all sides.

As he thus lay there helpless, he had leisure to reflect for the first time upon the full bitterness of his situation. Adrift in the fog, and in the night, and borne onward swiftly down into the Bay of Fundy—that was his position. And what could he do? That was the one question which he could not answer. Giving way now to the rush of despair, he lay for some time motionless, feeling the rocking of the waves, and the breath of the wind, and the chill damp of the fog, yet unable to do anything against these enemies. For nearly an hour he lay thus inactive, and at the end of that time his lost energies began to return. He rose and looked around. The scene had not changed at all; in fact, there was no scene to change. There was nothing but black darkness all around. Suddenly something knocked against the boat. He reached out his hand, and touched a piece of wood, which the next instant slipped from his grasp. But the disappointment was not without its alleviation, for he thought that he might come across some bits of drift wood, with which he could do something, perhaps, for his escape. And so buoyant was his soul, and so obstinate his courage, that this little incident of itself served to revive his faculties. He went to the stern of the boat, and sitting there, he tried to think upon what might be best to be done.

What could be done in such a situation? He could swim, but of what avail was that? In what direction could he swim, or what progress could he make, with such a tide? As to paddling, he thought of that no more; paddling was exhausted, and his board was useless. Nothing remained, apparently, but inaction. Inaction was indeed hard, and it was the worst condition in which he could be placed, for in such a state the mind always preys upon itself; in such a state trouble is always magnified, and the slow time passes more slowly. Yet to this inaction he found himself doomed.

He floated on now for hours, motionless and filled with despair, listening to the dash of the waves, which were the only sounds that came to his ears. And so it came to pass, in process of time, that by incessant attention to these monotonous sounds, they ceased to be altogether monotonous, but seemed to assume various cadences and intonations. His sharpened ears learned at last to distinguish between the dash of large waves and the plash of small ones, the sighing of the wind, the pressure of the waters against the boat's bows, and the ripple of eddies under its stern. Worn out by excitement and fatigue, he lay motionless, listening to sounds like these, and taking in them a mournful interest, when suddenly, in the midst of them, his ears caught a different cadence. It was a long, measured sound, not an unfamiliar one, but one which he had often heard—the gathering sound which breaks out, rising and accumulating upon the ear, as the long line of surf falls upon some rocky shore. He knew at once what this was, and understood by it that he was near some shore; but what shore it might be he could not know. The sound came up from his right, and therefore might be the New Brunswick coast, if the boat had preserved its proper position. But the position of the boat had been constantly changing as she drifted along, so that it was impossible to tell whether he was drifting stern foremost or bow foremost. The water moved as the boat moved, and there was no means by which to judge. He listened to the surf, therefore, but made no attempt to draw nearer to it. He now knew perfectly well that with his present resources no efforts of his could avail anything, and that his only course would be to wait. Besides, this shore, whatever it was, must be very different, he thought, from the banks of the Petitcodiac. It was, as he thought, an iron-bound shore. And the surf which he heard broke in thunder a mile away, at the foot of giant precipices, which could only offer death to the hapless wretch who might be thrown among them. He lay, therefore, inactive, listening to this rolling surf for hours. At first it grew gradually louder, as though he was approaching it; but afterwards it grew fainter quite as gradually, until at length it could no longer be heard.

During all these lonely hours, one thing afforded a certain consolation, and that was, the discovery that the sea did not grow rougher. The wind that blew was the sou-wester, the dreaded wind of fog and, storm; but on this occasion its strength was not put forth; it blew but moderately, and the water was not very greatly disturbed. The sea tossed the little boat, but was not high enough to dash over her, or to endanger her in any way. None of its spray ever came upon the recumbent form in the boat, nor did any moisture come near him, save that which was deposited by the fog. At first, in his terror, he had counted upon meeting a tempestuous sea; but, as the hours passed, he saw that thus far there had been nothing of the kind, and, if he were destined to be exposed to such a danger, it lay as yet in the future. As long as the wind continued moderate, so long would he toss over the little waves without being endangered in any way. And thus, with all these thoughts, sometimes depressing, at other times rather encouraging, he drifted on.

Hours passed away.

At length his fatigue overpowered him more and more, and as he sat there in the stern, his eyes closed, and his head fell heavily forward. He laid it upon the sail which was in front of him, so as to get an easier position, and was just closing his eyes again, when a sound came to his ears which in an instant drove every thought of sleep and of fatigue away, and made him start up and listen with intense eagerness.

It was the sound of a fog horn, such as is used by coasting vessels, and blown during a fog, at intervals, to give warning of their presence. The sound was a familiar one to a boy who had been brought up on the fog-encircled and fish-haunted shores of Newfoundland; and Tom's hearing, which had been almost hushed in slumber, caught it at once. It was like the voice of a friend calling to him. But for a moment he thought it was only a fancy, or a dream, and he sat listening and quivering with excitement. He waited and listened for some time, and was just about to conclude that it was a dream, when suddenly it came again. There was no mistake this time. It was a fog horn. Some schooner was sailing these waters. O for day-light, and O for clear weather, so that he might see it, and make himself seen! The sound, though clear, was faint, and the schooner was evidently at a considerable distance; but Tom, in his eagerness, did not think of that. He shouted with all his strength. He waited for an answer, and then shouted again. Once more he waited, and listened, and then again and again his screams went forth over the water. But still no response came. At last, after some interval, the fog horn again sounded. Again Tom screamed, and yelled, and uttered every sound that could possibly convey to human ears an idea of his presence, and of his distress.

The sounds of the fog horn, however, did not correspond with his cries. It was blown at regular intervals, which seemed painfully long to Tom, and did not seem to sound as if in answer to him. At first his hope was sustained by the discovery that the sounds were louder, and therefore nearer; but scarcely had he assured himself of this, when he perceived that they were growing fainter again, as though the schooner had approached him, and then sailed away. This discovery only stimulated him to more frantic exertions. He yelled more and more loudly, and was compelled, at last, to cease from pure exhaustion. But even then he did not cease till long after the last notes of the departing fog horn had faintly sounded in his ears.

It was a disappointment bitter indeed, since it came after a reviving hope. What made it all the worse was a fixed idea which he had, that the schooner was no other than the Antelope. He felt confident that she had come at once after him, and was now traversing the waters in search of him, and sounding the horn so as to send it to his ears and get his response. And his response had been given with this result! This was the end of his hopes. He could bear it no longer. The stout heart and the resolute obstinacy which had so long struggled against fate now gave way utterly. He buried his face in his hands, and burst into a passion of tears.

He wept for a long time, and roused himself, at last, with difficulty, to a dull despair. What was the use of hoping, or thinking, or listening? Hope was useless. It was better to let himself go wherever the waters might take him. He reached out his hand and drew the sail forward, and then settling himself down in the stern of the boat, he again shut his eyes and tried to sleep. But sleep, which a short time before had been so easy, was now difficult. His ears took in once more the different sounds of the sea, and soon became aware of a deeper, drearer sound than any which had hitherto come to him. It was the hoarse roar of a great surf, far more formidable than the one which he had heard before. The tumult and the din grew rapidly louder, and at length became so terrific that he sat upright, and strained his eyes in the direction from which it came. Peering thus through the darkness, he saw the glow of phosphorescent waves wrought out of the strife of many waters; and they threw towards him, amid the darkness, a baleful gleam which fascinated his eyes. A feeling came to him now that all was over. He felt, as though he were being sucked into some vortex, where Death lay in wait for him. He trembled. A prayer started to his lips, and burst from him. Suddenly his boat seemed caught by some resistless force, and jerked to one side; the next instant it rose on some swelling wave, and was shot swiftly forward. Tom closed his eyes, and a thrill of horror passed through every nerve. All at once a rude shock was felt, and the boat shook, and Tom thought he was going down. It seemed like the blow of a rock, and he could think only of the ingulfing waters. But the waters hesitated to claim their prey; the rushing motion ceased; and soon the boat was tossing lightly, as before, over the waves, while the hoarse and thunderous roar of those dread unseen breakers, from which he had been so wondrously saved, arose wrathfully behind, as though they were howling after their escaped victim. A cry of gratitude escaped Tom, and with trembling lips he offered a heart-felt prayer to that divine Power whose mighty hand had just rescued him from a terrible doom.

Tom's agitation had been so great that it was long before he could regain his former calm. At last, however, his trembling subsided. He heard no longer the howling surf. All was calm and quiet. The wind ceased, the boat's motion was less violent, the long-resisted slumber came once more to his eyes. Still his terror kept off sleep, and as his eyes would close, they would every moment open again, and he would start in terror and look around.

At length he saw that the darkness was less profound. Light was coming, and that light was increasing. He could see the dark waters, and the gloomy folds of the enclosing mist became apparent. He gave a heavy sigh, partly of terror at the thought of all that he had gone through, and partly of relief at the approach of light.

Well might he sigh, for this light was the dawn of a new day, and showed him that he had been a whole night upon the waters.

And now he could no longer struggle against sleep. His eyes closed for the last time. His head fell forward on the wet sail.

He was sound asleep.