"Running into a fog bank," he said. "Look ahead."
One could not see it. Only it was as if the ring of sea to windward
had of a sudden grown smaller. Heidrek was not a mile astern of us,
and still his ships were in bright sunshine. Even as we watched
them, a grayness fell on them, and then they grew dim.
Then the fog closed in on us, and swallowed us up, and drifted
across the decks so thickly that we could barely see from gunwale
to gunwale, damp, and chilling. Still, the wind did not fail us,
hurrying the fog before it.
"We must hold on until we know if this is but a bank of fog, or if
it is everywhere," Bertric said. "What say you, Malcolm?"
I thought a while, knowing the cold sea fogs of the north pretty
well.
"Heidrek will be in it by this time," I said. "Fog bank or more, I
would about ship and run back past him with the wind. If it is a
bank, we shall go with it, and he must lose us. If it is more, we
can get on our southward course in it shortly, and if he sights us
again, he will have all his work to catch us, for his men will be
tired of rowing."
"What if the fog lifts directly?"
"We shall be little worse off than now--and we shall be heading
down on Heidrek before he knows it."
"Aye," he answered, "with way enough on us to sink him offhand, and
maybe take this ship clear through his.
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