eats me."

The caisson closed, and the steam-yacht warped up slowly to the pier.
There was little or no noise on her, only a voice raised occasionally
in an authoritative command, and the rattling of chains that paid out
through the donkey-engine. Idly I moved to the stone quay when the
gangway was let down, but only one man descended. The passengers, if
there had been any, had long since reached town from Tilbury, saving
themselves that uninteresting trudge up the winding river-lane.

I moved on to where a steamer was being loaded under the electric
lights, and watched the same for some time with interest; then, taking
out my watch, I examined it, and came to the conclusion that if I was
to see any patients that evening at all I must at once get back to my
unpalatable rooms. I began to go along the pier, and passed into the
shadow of the _Sea Queen_, now sunk in quiet, and drab and dark. As I
went, a port-hole in the stern almost on the level of my eyes gleamed
like a moon, and of a sudden there was an outbreak of angry voices, one
threatening volubly and the other deeper and slower, but equally
hostile. It was not that the altercation was anything astonishing in
human life, but I think it was the instantaneous flash of that light
and those voices in a dead ship that pulled me up. I stared into the
port-hole, and as I did so the face of a man passed across it 'twixt
the light and me; it passed and vanished; and I walked on. As I turned
to go down to the gates I was aware of the approaching fog. I had seen
it scores of times in that abominable low-lying part of the town, and I
knew the symptoms. There was a faint smell in the air, an odour that
bit the nostrils, carrying the reek of that changeless wilderness of
factories and houses. The opaque grey sky lost its greyness and was
struck to a lurid yellow. Banks of high fog rolled up the east and
moved menacingly, almost imperceptibly, upon the town. For a moment
there were dim shadows of the wharves and the riverside houses, with a
church tower dimmer still behind them, and then the billows of the fog
descended and swallowed up all.

I moved now in a blackness, but bore to the right, in which direction I
knew were the dock sheds and safety. I seemed to have been feeling my
way for a long time--quite ten minutes--and yet I did not come upon
anything. I began to be seized with the fear of a blind man who is
helpless in vacancy. Had I left the basin in my rear, or had I s