I N A G U A 



landia." Wally Coleman, my tall, blond, Nordic-looking first 

 mate, chief cook and companion, gave me a cheery grin as I 

 sUd down the ladder and dropped sleepily on a bunk. With 

 one hand he was balancing a frying pan filled with a mound 

 of sizzling brown oysters over the galley stove and with the 

 other preparing to lift the needle from the Sibelius record 

 which was spinning on a small portable phonograph tightly 

 bolted to a shelf near his bunk. 



"No sign of wind yet?" he asked. 



I shook my head and fell back on the blankets. I was a little 

 worried. Hour after hour this fog had hung heavily about us, 

 shrouding us in an unnatural gloom and retarding our progress. 

 I was disturbed because I had the feeling that this prolonged 

 quiet unbroken except for the intermittent blare of our fog 

 horn was the prelude to something more violent. It was then 

 past the middle of November and I knew that December was 

 coming with December's gales and I was anxious to be clear 

 of northern waters. 



Through the portholes I could see that the light was waning 

 and the gloom growing deeper. There was something intan- 

 gible about this gloom, it had no depth or substance but pos- 

 sessed a certain indefinite quality that seemed unreal. This was 

 the fifth night the daylight had vanished in shadowy emptiness. 



Coleman lit an oil lantern set in brass gimbals and in its pleas- 

 ant soft glow the feeling of depression vanished. Across a small 

 table he shoved a steaming heap of oysters and potatoes, hot 

 coffee and a prodigious pile of brown biscuits and yellow 

 butter. We fell to with gusto, talking little, for the salt air had 

 made us hungry. Then sated with good food we dropped 

 back on our bunks to smoke and relax. But first I went on deck 

 again, groped forward to the main stays where I found the 

 riding light, lit it and placed it in its fastenings. The fog was 

 so thick that its glow disappeared within eight feet. I then took 



