"Ship ahoy! Heave to! you blasted son of a cuttle-fish lubber! You've rammed us amidships, you blasted Billygoat. Where are your lights? Why didn't ye sound the horn?" His lantern, held far over the rail, made no impression at all on the choking fog. Jumping up and running after Samuel, Tandy strained his eyes for a glimpse of the ship that had hit them, for unmistakably to his ears came the scrape and rasp of wood on wood. Yes, surely it was a ship. But no answer to Samuel's hail came out of the fog, only the swish and murmur of the sea and the rattle of wind in the rigging. But all this creaking could not come from the _Crescent Moon_ alone. There _was_ a ship beyond them in the fog, but where, as Samuel had demanded, were her lights and crew? Wildly Tandy, hardly knowing what to think or do, continued to blink into the maddening darkness. Ato and Roger, wakened by the horrible jolt, now came hurrying out, each waving a lantern. "Let go the anchor, Mates," ordered Samuel in a stern voice, "we're to grips with an enemy ship, so stand by for trouble. Further shortening his sail, Samuel waited tensely for the first move from their invisible foe. "Might be pirates," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Tandy, who stood close beside him grasping the scimiter that had once been Peter's. "Jump the first man aboard." "How about a long shot in their general direction?" wheezed Ato, who found the silence and suspense well nigh unbearable. "No, it is not for _us_ to start a fight," stated Samuel grimly. "But hah! Just let _them_ start one! Fetch me my stilts, Roger, and be quick about it, too!" "Stilts?" choked the Read Bird, dropping the blunderbuss with which he had armed, or rather winged, himself. "You'll never be trying those things again--they nearly shivered our timbers last time. Why take another chance?" "My stilts!" repeated Samuel savagely, and Roger, who knew his duty as a sailor, flew without further argument to the hold. When Roger returned with a stilt in each claw, the Captain grasped one and moving silently as a cat over to the port rail, he thrust the long pole experimentally out into the fog. There was an instant thud, and Samuel himself got a severe jolt as the stilt struck against some firm and immovable object beyond. Convinced that it was an enemy ship, Samuel returned to the others and, drawn up in an anxious row, the four shipmates waited for the fog to lift or the first enemy seaman to leap aboard.