From the lofty bridge MacKenzie peered up the funnel-shaped lane whose narrow end opens between steep cliffs into the harbor. He looked into the bay and searched the hillsides above the Marin County precipices for any sign of downward movement in the fog. This was the last chance to stop until she passed through the neck of the funnel--between Fort Point and Lime Point. The gray fog was still motionless up there on the slopes. He uttered an order; the _Empress_ started on. She passed Mile Rock far over to her right. More than two miles ahead of her, at the edge of the point which has been named for it, the grim old black fort, with its rows of loopholes, stood out clearly. Across the narrow channel from it, the Lime Point Lighthouse gleamed white upon its rocky headland. Under MacKenzie’s feet the decks were astir with men and women. Some were rushing to and fro in a fervor of final packing; others stood at the rail, gazing eagerly at the first evidences of the city; all were radiant with the expectancy of their home-coming. Back and forth among them stewards hurried on a multitude of errands; Chinese deck boys slipped unostentatiously in and out through the crowd; the noise of many tongues arose on all sides. Up here, remote from all that bustle, in the lonely place of responsibility, MacKenzie stood motionless; the captain paced back and forth close by, but spoke no word to him. Then the fog seemed to fall from the hillsides upon the ship, it came so suddenly. A thick, damp grayness cut off the bridge from everything; it obscured the decks; the bows were only a faint blur. The land vanished. The _Empress_ was traveling on a little circle of dark waters over whose surface hoary shreds of mist were trailing; a circle whose circumference moved as the ship moved, whose area remained unchanged, without the slightest sound of anything beyond. Out of that gray mystery great voices came, deep-toned, reverberating as in horror of the tidings which they proclaimed. The sirens were bellowing their brazen warnings to the ship, and the living rock trembled as they called their stern commands to keep away or die. The ship went on; she must pass through the narrows before she could stop again. She was no longer steaming proudly in; she crept as one who has been stricken blind and feels her way; out of mid-channel toward the Marin County shore--MacKenzie was able to bring her that far while the fog was descending--and now she crawled along under the lofty hills. The passengers had left her decks; there were no signs of life save for the lookout hidden in the murk that cloaked the bows, and the two men on the bridge. The captain’s face had grown tense, and as he paced back and forth he glanced often at MacKenzie. But MacKenzie stood motionless, and there was no sign of feeling on his face.