"It has not taken those out," he said. "They are dead," said Tom Horn. "And they are over-borne by other dead; they have no minds to call on God; they have no sails to hold aloft to the winds; and so they remain here, and will remain until they sink, as many have sunk before them, into the thick depths and to horrors that no one has seen." The sun grew red as it went behind the climbing mist; it grew huge and fiery and shot long, threatening darts across the silent sea; the hideous birds came croaking out of the air and settled heavily upon the broken spars and green, fungus-grown bits of wreckage. Thicker and thicker grew the mist, and things magnified marvelously; it shook and waved like banners; it arose and floated like clouds. "It is a wall," said Tom Horn. "It is a vast thing come between heaven and men who are lost. What does it seek to hide?" he asked of Anthony, as the sun's rim dipped below the sea and the shadows suddenly thickened. "What is there in the air above that the malevolence of this dying sea tries to keep from its victims? I once thought," and his voice was now a whisper, "that it might be hope, a something which told of release. I'd hold that in my mind through whole long nights; and comfort came from it for then I'd not seem so completely forsaken and alone." After this it grew dark; the ship's lights glowed feebly; heavy flights of birds stirred the air; from distant places came queer, deep movements of the water, then long silences. Anthony wrapped mademoiselle in a great cloak to protect her from the damp, and side by side they walked the deck. The binnacle-light threw a glow over the man at the wheel; outside the lamp's radius the mist banked steep and white. Then a wind crept up; in the lantern-light the mist became agitated; it rolled and mounted and sunk; and then it began to drift away. A dim glow showed itself out over the drift. Suddenly mademoiselle said, in a voice of fear: "Look! The wrecked ships! Some one is aboard them!" Through the seams and ports of the distant hulks, pale lights were glimmering, illuminating the sea with a ghastly radiance. "They are 'witch' lights such as one sees in a marsh; a place like the Sargasso would have many of them," said Anthony. For some time they stood together, watching the silent hulks, and the corpse lights on their decks and rails; then the moon came up, clear, cold, and almost at its full; its rays, glancing upon the shreds of mist, sparkled wanly. The wind grew more active; it rustled in the sails, as though calling attention to its presence, and Anthony, with the help of the watch, trimmed the canvas to get what good there was in it. "By morning," said one of the men, "we'll be in that press of wreckage ahead there." "What wind there is," said Anthony, "will not give us head against this grass and litter; if we move at all it must be forward."