Page:Morley roberts--Blue Peter--sea yarns.djvu/146

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130
THE BLUE PETER

They went to dinner, and the sun did something of the same sort. At anyrate it went out of sight, and a thick fog came down on the castaways.

"We 'opes no bloomin' packet 'll come and run us pore blighters down," said the men as they fell to work on the grub, "for accordin' to the 'old man,' who is the cheerfulest bloke in difficulties we ever struck, we're right in the track of the ole shoot of 'em, and may be picked up or scooted into the sea again any minute."

As a matter of fact, they were then on the southern tail of the Bank, for when the Swan bunted her nose into the berg, she was pretty well at the locality on the Grand Bank where the usual 'lane' to New York is left for the lane to Halifax. The very watch before the collision they had verified their position by flying the 'blue pigeon,' as seamen call the deep-sea lead, and ever since then they had been floating in the Labrador current to the south and east. To locate them exactly, they were just about where the Great Circle Track of steamers from the English Channel to the Gulf of Mexico crosses the tail of the Bank. There was every chance of something coming