"Very likely; but we can't help ourselves, for we must keep steerage-way on her, and keep her from getting swamped. We'll sail as close to the wind as we can. If the wind is southwest, and if we keep it on our port bow, we shall be drifting in toward the shore, and if it's blowing from some other direction, we sha'n't be making headway enough to do much harm." "You know best," said Tom. "We'll do as you say." "I would give almost anything," continued Charley, "if the fog would only lift. However, the wind must blow it away." "We must have gone out of the inlet when we were letting her drift with the tide; but why we didn't notice it I can't understand," remarked Harry. "There was no wind at the time, and we were busy talking," said Charley. "Come to think of it, we never noticed that we couldn't hear the surf until just now. I remember hearing it when we were in the ditch, but I haven't the least idea when we lost the sound of it." "The fog is breaking," cried Joe. "It's clear overhead." "And the wind is rising fast," added Charley, "and the sea is getting up. In another half-hour we sha'n't dare to keep the mainsail on her, for there will be too much of it, even though it is close reefed." Joe and Charley were both right. The fog was growing thinner, and the wind was rising, but the wind rose even faster than Charley had predicted. In the course of the next twenty minutes it was blowing so hard that it was no longer safe for the _Ghost_ to carry her mainsail. Charley ordered it to be hauled down, the jib to be set, and the boat to be put before the wind. The moment the jib filled, the _Ghost_ started away like a runaway horse, but whether she was heading for the beach or for the Bermuda islands it was impossible to guess. For another half-hour the fog hung around them, and then all at once it vanished like a curtain that is suddenly drawn up. The boys eagerly looked in every direction for land. None was visible except in the northwest, where the low gray line of Long Island, and the slender tower of a light-house, could be faintly seen at a distance of at least twelve miles. The wind blew directly from the land, and the impossibility of beating back to the shore was manifest. [TO BE CONTINUED.] [Illustration: "AND BLEW AS HE'D NOT BLOWN SINCE HE WAS BORN."] JEREMY BLACK'S FOURTH OF JULY. BY HOWARD PYLE. "I'll make a noise," said Jeremy Black, As the days drew nigh To the Fourth of July; "I'll make more noise than a cannon, or pack Of fire-crackers, or pistol, or gun, Or cannon-cracker; I'll have more fun, With fifty cents, than the rest of the boys With a dollar's worth of powder and things-- With fifty cents I will make more noise Than all the rest of the town, by jings!"