Backing with one oar, pulling with the other, I rose on the top of a great sea, and caught the light again just as it began to come into sight.  Off I went, at a splendid pace, driving along in the trough and over the crest of the waves, steering by a star behind me, for about ten minutes; then light and stars sank back into the mist, and all was black again.  I waited a few moments, and again the light shone out; but meantime the boat’s bow had veered several points.  Turning toward it, I was off full speed this time for about five minutes, before the fog swept in again.  Then another rest on my oars.  The fog drifted out and drifted in backwards and forwards, now thinning here, then thinning there; but no other glimpse of the light did I get that night.  For a moment, a shadowy-looking schooner glided slowly along a few hundred feet ahead of me, and directly across my track,—­then melted out into the darkness.  After waiting some time longer, finding no chance of another glimpse of the light, I secured my oars, and, as the wind and sea had decreased, got ready to turn in.  The seat-room was only four feet long,—­two feet short of my length; and the washboard, which was three inches in height, surrounded the seat-room and obliged me to use the boat-sponge as a pillow.  But trusting to chance that my craft would come across nothing either fixed or floating, I retreated at once to the land of Nod.  What the weather was during the rest of that night, or what might have been seen, I cannot say; for I did not wake till my watch told seven in the morning.  Then my eyes opened to, or rather in, as choice a specimen of mist as had yet been met with.

It was perfectly calm; the sea was undulating slightly, and not a breath of wind stirring.  I sat up and looked around.  Nothing visible but misty atmosphere and leaden-colored water; the phosphorescent sparkle had quite gone out of it.  I listened, and with the low dull roar of the surf on Rye Beach on one side came the break of the waves on the Shoals, but so faint that it was doubtful whether it were really audible, when another most unmistakable sound assured me Landlord Laighton was blowing his breakfast-horn on Appledore Island.  The familiar notes of that very peculiar performance came clearly through the fog.  Had he kept on blowing twenty minutes longer, he would have had another guest; but he stopped before ten strokes could be taken.  So, reluctantly turning my boat for the other shore, I pulled for the sound of the surf, which increased as I approached it.  The beach was still several miles distant, when the short, quick rap of oars came to my ears.  I knew at once the fisherman’s stroke, and, supposing that he had put out from the shore and did not mean to stay out long, I gave chase at once, and pulled till he stopped rowing and was apparently near.  Then I hailed, and after a twenty minutes’ hunt caught a glimpse of his dory and immediately introduced myself.  He was fishing with two lines, one on