Being off Block Island, our course was due east, to
Nantucket Shoals, and the South Channel; but the wind died away
and left us becalmed in a thick fog, in which we lay the whole
of Sunday. At noon of
Sunday, 18th, Block Island bore, by calculation, N. W. 1/4 W.
fifteen miles; but the fog was so thick all day that we could see
nothing.
Having got through the ship's duty, and washed and shaved, we went
below, and had a fine time overhauling our chests, laying aside the
clothes we meant to go ashore in and throwing overboard all that were
worn out and good for nothing. Away went the woollen caps in which
we had carried hides upon our heads, for sixteen months, on the
coast of California; the duck frocks, for tarring down rigging;
and the worn-out and darned mittens and patched woollen trowsers
which had stood the tug of Cape Horn.
We hove them overboard with a good will; for there is nothing
like being quit of the very last appendages and remnants of
our evil fortune. We got our chests all ready for going ashore,
ate the last "duff" we expected to have on board the ship Alert;
and talked as confidently about matters on shore as though our
anchor were on the bottom.
"Who'll go to church with me a week from to-day?"
"I will," says Jack; who said aye to everything.
"Go away, salt water!" says Tom. "As soon as I get both legs
ashore, I'm going to shoe my heels, and button my ears behind me,
and start off into the bush, a straight course, and not stop till
I'm out of the sight of salt water!"
"Oh! belay that! Spin that yarn where nobody knows your filling!
If you get once moored, stem and stern, in old B - - -'s grog-shop,
with a coal fire ahead and the bar under your lee, you won't see
daylight for three weeks!"
"No!" says Tom, "I'm going to knock off grog, and go and board
at the Home, and see if they won't ship me for a deacon!"
"And I," says Bill, "am going to buy a quadrant and ship for
navigator of a Hingham packet!"
These and the like jokes served to pass the time while we were
lying waiting for a breeze to clear up the fog and send us on our
way.
Toward night a moderate breeze sprang up; the fog however continuing
as thick as before; and we kept on to the eastward. About the middle
of the first watch, a man on the forecastle sang out, in a tone which
showed that there was not a moment to be lost, - "Hard up the helm!"
and a great ship loomed up out of the fog, coming directly down
upon us.
