As Frank rowed down the harbor in the morning, he saw himself clearly,
in the light of conscience, as a selfish, contemptible brother. He
admitted to himself that he ought to have taken Kate in the _Clover_ and
given her a morning’s pleasure on this one of the latest days he should
be at home.
Two or three times he half yielded to the impulse to go back for her and
began to row with uncertain weak stroke outward, when, with sudden
impetus, Victor, from the island, shot past him with the call “You’d
better hurry! Capital morning for fishing, and we’re off at high water
for Long Island.”
“It’s my last chance to see the fishing-boats and the old mill and
everything, and mother won’t let Kate go outside any time,” thought
Frank, and he bent to the oars and shot past the coal dock, as seen by
Kate and Harry in the last chapter.
At the island everyone was busy preparing to leave for new
fishing-grounds—the season for fishing in that part of the Sound being
nearly past. The great seines were being taken down from the reels along
the side of the wharf, casks of water were going out to sloops in small
boats, and every fisherman was getting together his individual
belongings, to say good-bye to the island for weeks to come.
Frank made the _Clover_ fast to the wharf, climbed the ladder and
wandered about awhile, watching the work that was going on and secretly
wondering whether or not if he had worn his uniform the men would have
paid more heed to him, for a chance word was all the attention he could
elicit, until Victor returned from town. Victor had been to the
postoffice to obtain the latest news from the homes of the men before
they should set sail. Victor distributed his letters and then went,
accompanied by Frank, “to pack up.”
As he proceeded to thrust into a huge carpet-bag his belongings, he
said:
“I wanted to see that land toggery of yours you’re going to school in.”
“It isn’t much,” answered Frank. “You’ll see it maybe at Christmas.
You’ll be back here before that time to lay up for winter and I’ll be at
home at vacation.” Then suddenly turning upon Victor, he asked, “Why
don’t you go home for Christmas? I should think you’d want to see your
home again.”
“I’m going some day,” said Victor, his blue eyes gleaming and his
beautiful white teeth showing to advantage. “I’ll take you home to
Germany. There’s much Christmas coming—plenty of time.”
“But folks die between one Christmas and another,” remarked Frank,
adding, “however, I hope your folks will not, and I’ve half a mind to
run away and go to Germany with you, when you do go, anyhow.”
“I’ll remember you when I let go for the Fatherland,” replied Victor, as
he gave vigorous thrusts to get into the bag a pair of boots. The bag,
large as it was, refused to close over them; and so he made it fast with
a rope, threw it over his shoulder, and carried it down to the landing.
At that instant the dinner-horn was blown from the door of the little
house on the island, and every man, notwithstanding his haste,
immediately responded with his presence. At the last dinner of the
fishing season Frank was present and assisted vigorously, after which he
rowed Victor and his big bag in the _Clover_ out to Victor’s boat. Then
he bade him good-bye and stood off while the sails went up and the
anchors were hoisted on board a dozen yachts of the fishing fleet.
It was a sad sight to Frank and to Captain Green, who was fishing
outside the island, to see the brave boats stepping away into the
distance. The tide being fair and the wind light, they were a long time
in sight; and the old man fishing thought the Sound would be lonely now,
and the boy “was rather glad he was going away to school, after all;
there wouldn’t be so much fun now on the water, anyway.”
Frank felt dispirited. He would have picked up his oars and rowed for
home had he not heard an exclamation from Captain Green, who at the
instant pulled in a fish of extraordinary size, which Frank seeing, felt
a desire to do likewise. So for the first time that day, Kate’s clams
came into service, and Frank fell to fishing with right good will. It
was, as Victor had remarked in the morning, “a capital day for fishing”;
either the bait was very alluring or the fish were very hungry, for they
bit vigorously and came into the boats in great numbers.
The _Clover_ lay about five hundred feet from Captain Green’s position,
and, so rapidly did the fog come down upon them—busy at baiting and
pulling in—that neither the experienced man nor the inexperienced boy
knew of its approach until it had shut them in.
“Sakes alive!” shouted Captain Green. “Frank! Frank Hallock!”
Frank responded, thinking Captain Green must have pulled up anchor and
moved position since last he noticed him.
“Hold on!” called the Captain.
“I’m holding on!” screamed back Frank, trying his best to pierce the fog
with his eyes.
“No, no! I’ll hold on and you get up anchor and pull for me—that will be
the better way—and we’ll keep together till we get in somewhere.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” yelled Frank, wondering what in the world made Captain
Green get around on the other side of him.
“Confound the boy!” thought the man in a rage. “I wonder how he got
outside of me without my knowing it.”
Now it so happened that neither boat had changed position since the
fishing station had been chosen. Frank toiled at the anchor line and
pulled the boat out to it and lifted it on board, then took up his oars
and rowed a few strokes. Hearing nothing from Captain Green, he paused
and gave a call.
“Here; this way—row this way,” responded the Captain.
“All right; I’m coming,” gleefully from Frank, reached his ears; and
then he listened, thinking it quite time he should hear the oar-strokes
of the advancing boat. Meanwhile Frank peered cautiously at the veil of
fog, trying to discern the outline of his friend’s boat and feeling very
glad to know that it was there somewhere near him, even though he could
not see it.
“Where are you?” from Captain Green, boomed against the bank of fog. He
called again—he shouted—he roared; and Frank, hearing the faintest note
of it, kept on rowing in the direction whence the sound seemed to come.
Poor Frank was following the voice of Echo, instead of the warm,
palpitating notes that the half-distracted Captain sent after him; he
was rowing after the phantom voice that lured him farther and farther
away from the land.
“It’s time I got to him; I’m sure it is,” thought Frank, no suspicion of
the truth entering his mind. Gaily he accosted his neighbor. “Ring the
school-bell, Captain, and I will come,” he called, and seemed to hear,
in response, a knell of sound, as of some deep, far-away fog-bell
booming solemnly.
For the first time in his life, as the _Clover_ lay on the slow swell of
the sea that he might listen, Frank Hallock felt a thrill of fear. What
could it mean? Where _was_ Captain Green? _Could_ he have gone off and
left him out there all alone?
Frank called and listened, and called again until his voice grew dull
and husky with shouting, and the only sound that seemed to respond was
that dreadful toll, whether of his own heart beating or of fog-bell, he
could not tell.
Meanwhile Captain Green, becoming thoroughly alarmed at the
non-appearance of the _Clover_, pulled up his own anchor and began to
row in the direction Frank’s boat had lain. After rowing around for
awhile, he concluded to let his boat drift with the tide, knowing that
in time it would take him toward the land. It so happened that the sound
of water, swashing on the stones of the island, assailed his hearing,
and, after many attempts, he succeeded in following the sound to its
source.
Having landed on the island, he immediately gave the alarm, and, after
having secured a boat and an oarsman, set forth in search of Frank, with
a compass as guide and the dinner-horn as trumpet.
They rowed north and south and east and west, the Captain acting as
trumpeter, and the only answer obtained from all their efforts was one
shrill steam-whistle as a passing steamboat made haste to change its
course to get out of the way of a supposed sailing vessel.
During all this time Frank Hallock was pulling out to sea, firmly
believing that he was making for the Connecticut coast. He heard neither
horn nor call nor whistle, as he steadily moved on his course. Meanwhile
the afternoon had been passing and the early evening was drawing near.
To Frank the fog seemed to be deepening, but it was the deepening of
darkness.
Many times he laid down his oars and set his ears to listen with an
intentness that made him feel as though he was all ears. He imagined
many sounds, but heard nothing except the splash of his own boat’s bow
on the sullen sea; then he would take up his oars, and, counting a
hundred strokes, lay them down and listen once again; but each and every
time with the same sickening failure to hear sound of helping man.
It was not until the darkness grew to night, and night unrelieved by
light or star, that Frank became thoroughly alarmed—and that he felt to
the full the dulling drench of the fog. It seemed to sink down through
the crown of his cap and suffuse hair and brain; it seemed to be swept
through him from shoulder to shoulder, and his very feet turned limp and
his knees shook as he arose and tried to stand for a moment, to relieve
the cramp that had settled down upon them.
“O that it would rain or blow or do anything but fog on like this,” he
thought. “I wonder what Kate would do out here now, to-night!”
Nevertheless, Frank could not help wishing, far down in his heart, that
Kate was with him out there, and he began to be very sorry that she was
not, for somehow a savor of comfort seemed always to be around Kate.
Whatever else came of the fog, loss of appetite did not, and Frank began
to feel all the beseeching of hunger.
“I wonder how long a fellow could live out here, anyhow,” he murmured,
“if it should go on fogging forever, and if, after a day or two of it, I
should want my supper as much as I do now? I want a loaf of rye bread
and a couple of quarts of milk like everything, and I wouldn’t mind
having an apple, or even a glass of water would taste first-rate. There
must be sailing craft around here thick as berries in a pudding—if I
could only run against one now.” But the only thing Frank ran against
was deeper darkness and now and then a denser fog-bank.
The last button of Frank’s coat was buttoned ere long. Whatever else of
cold there was to come, he must bear as best he could. He rowed a little
to keep warm and shouted a good deal, and began to feel the awful
pressure of loneliness clasping him tighter and tighter. At last the
cold damp affected his strained eyeballs to such degree that he was
compelled to shut his eyes; and then somehow—exactly how he could not
understand—he began to see himself, not out there, mistbound in the cool
autumn evening, tossing up and down on the swell of the sea, but just
himself as he was, as he had been living from day to day in his home,
and his selfishness began to grow into something awful. He wished he
could remember a few kind, nice, good things that he had done for
somebody over there on that queer land, that must be somewhere, but
which seemed so far away, and a good deal more like a dream than—but
what was that noise? Frank shouted to it, but the rolling porpoise did
not think it worth while to wait and make reply.
At last, thoroughly worn out, Frank sank down gradually into his boat
and began to sob. There was no one to hear and he sobbed on until the
misery of the darkness and the breathing waters grew into him. He wanted
something that he had not; he wanted the solid land and safety; home,
with its love and warmth, its lights and food; and all at once he wanted
something more even than these—he wanted the God of the sea, in whose
dreadful clasp he was caught, to be his friend.
He was tired of rowing, tired of calling, tired of everything. He wanted
to go to sleep. Yes, Frank was, as he had said, fourteen and over and
could take care of himself; but he, for the first time in many, many
nights, went back to that most comforting form of petition, “Now I lay
me.” With a firm resolve to be a better boy, sell the _Clover_, and be
kind to Kate and love everybody, and always tell the truth and do just
right, if he ever got to land, Frank sank into a state of damp
unconsciousness.
When he awoke, the boat was tossing up and down; the fog was, if
anything, denser than ever, and he was so stiff that on the first trial
he could not sit up. To have had no supper was uncomfortable, to go
breakfastless was hard; but the day was dawning. A light fog would be a
few degrees better than a dark one; besides, by this time all the boats
in the harbor must be beating about in search of him. But no boat found
him all that long, cold day, and another night found Frank Hallock, limp
and helpless and half unconscious, lying in the _Clover_, which drifted
and drifted in the open Sound. It was the longest fog that had been
known in many years.