After all it was about time I should now see that, though we might shape a course for the yacht and give the wind the name of the compass points whence it blew, Chance was our skipper and helmsman, and the regions into which he was leading us as blind and thick as smoke. Throughout life, and in all things, it is the same, of course; we sail with a fog that stands wall-like at the bows of our intentions, receding inch by inch with our advance, and leaving the water clear on either hand and astern, but ahead it remains for ever as thick as mud in a wineglass. Anyhow, the chase was a sort of consolation to Wilfrid; it had Miss Laura’s approval, and there was hope enough to be got out of it according to her to render her trustful. But for my part I could only view it as a yachting excursion, and I particularly felt this when I stepped on deck with my cousin, spite of my quite recent talk with his sweet sister-in law, and felt the sweep of the strong wind, and caught the roar of the divided waters sounding a small thunder upon the ears after the comparative calm of the breakfast-table below. CHAPTER VI. FINN TESTS THE CREW’S SIGHT. Little of interest happened at the outset. There were but three of us for company; our ship was a small one, and the inner life of it a monotonous round of eating, drinking, smoking, of taking the wheel, of pendulously stumping the quarter-deck, of keeping a look-out, of scrubbing and polishing, and making and shortening sail; whilst outside there was nothing but weather and sea; so that in a very short time I had lapsed into the old ocean trick of timing the passage of the hours by meals. But that I may not approach in a staggering or disjointed way the huddle of astonishments which _then_ lay many leagues’ distance past the gleam of the sea-line towards which our bowsprit was pointing, I will enter here in a sort of log-book fashion a few of the interests, features, and spectacles of this early passage of our singular excursion. The fresh wind ran us well down Channel. Hour after hour the ‘Bride’ was driving the green seas into foam before her, and there was a continuous fretful heaving of the log to Wilfrid’s feverish demands, until I think, before we were two days out, the very souls of the crew had grown to loathe the cry of ‘Turn!’ and the rattle of the reel.