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It seemed as though the opaque walls about him held in the sound

as heavy curtains might in a large room; it fell dead on his own

ears without any of the reverberant power that sound has in

traveling across water.

Once more he listened. He knew that the schooner, being at

anchor, would be ringing her bell; but he hardly hoped to catch a

sound of that. Instead, he listened for the answering peal of a

horn in one of the other dories. Straining his ears, he thought

he caught a faint toot ahead of him and to starboard.

He seized his oars and rowed hard for several minutes in the

direction of the sound. Then he stopped, and, rising to his feet,

sent another great blast brawling forth into the fog. Once more

he listened, and again it seemed as though an answering horn

sounded in the distance. But it was fainter this time.