Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro, She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord let her go! “Does that gor-righteously fool ahead there think I blowed three whistles to salute Marston's birthday or their last dividend, Mr. Mayo?” shouted Captain Wass. Fogs are freaky; ocean mists are often eerie in movements. There are strata, there are eddying air-currents which rend the curtain or shred the massing vapors. The men in the pilot-house of the _Nequasset_ suddenly found their range of vision widened. The fog did not clear; it became more tenuous and showed an area of the sea. It was like a thin veil which disclosed dimly what it distorted and magnified. In a fog, experienced steamboat men always examine with earnest gaze the line where fog and ocean merge. They do not stare up into the fog, trying to distinguish the loom of an on-coming craft; they are able to discern first of all the white line of foam marking the vessel's cutwater kick-up or her wake. “There she comes, sir!” announced the mate. He pointed his finger at a foaming upthrust of tossing water. “Yes, sir! Eighteen knots and both eyes shut!” But there was relief mingled with the resentment. His quick glance informed him that the liner would pass the _Nequasset_ well to starboard--her bow showed a divergence of at least two points from the freighter's course. But the next instant Captain Wass yelped a shout of angry alarm. “Yes, both eyes shut!” he repeated. Right in line with the liner's threshing bow was a fisherman's Hampton boat, disclosed as the fog drifted. The passenger-steamer gave forth a half-dozen “woofs” from her whistle, answering the freighter's staccato warning, but gave no signs of slowing. But that they were making an attempt to dodge the mite in their path was made known by a shout from their lookout and his shrill call: “Port! Hard over!” The fisherman had all the alertness of his kind, trained by dangers and ever-present prospect of mischance to grab at desperate measures. He leaped forward and pulled out his mast and tossed mast and sail overboard. He knew that he must encounter the tremendous wash and wake of the rushing hull. His shell of a boat, if made topheavy by the sail, would stand small show. “He's a goner!” gasped Captain Wass. “She's a-going to tramp him plumb underfoot--unless she's going to get up a little more speed and jump over him!” he added, moved to bitter sarcasm. They saw the little boat go into eclipse behind the black prow, the first lift of the churning waters flipping the cockleshell as a coin is snapped by the thumb. The fisherman was not in view--he had thrown himself flat in the bottom of his boat. “He's under for keeps,” stated the skipper, with conviction. “If her bilge-keel doesn't cooper him, her port propeller will!”