obstruction to the belief that we were bound for no more than the
steamer _Aldebaran_, anchored in Bugsby's Reach. From the low deck of
the barge it was surprising that the River, whose name was Night, was
content with the height to which it had risen. Perhaps it was taking
its time. It might soon receive an influx from space, rise then in a
silent upheaval, and those low shadows that were London, even now half
foundered, would at once go. This darkness was an irresponsible power.
It was the same flood which had sunk Knossos and Memphis. It was
tranquil, indifferent, knowing us not, reckoning us all one with the
Sumerians. They were below it. It had risen above them. Now the time
had come when it was laving the base of London.

The crew cried out to us that over there was the entrance to the West
India Dock. We knew that place in another life. But should Charon
joke with us? We saw only chaos, in which the beams from a reputed
city glimmered without purpose.

The shadow of the master of our black barge pulled at his sweep with a
slow confidence that was fearful amid what was sightless and unknown.
His pipe glowed, as with the profanity of an immortal to whom eternity
and infinity are of the usual significance. Then a red and green eye
appeared astern, and there was a steady throbbing as if some monster
were in pursuit of us. A tug shaped near us, drew level, and exposed
with its fires, as it went ahead, a radiant _Lizzie_ on an area of
water that leaped in red flames. The furnace door of the tug was shut,
and at once we were blind. "Hold hard," yelled our skipper, and the
_Lizzie_ slipped into the turmoil of the tug's wake.

There would be Millwall. The tug and the turmoil had gone. We were
alone again in the beyond. There was no sound now but the water
spattering under our craft, and the fumbling and infrequent splash of
the sweep. Once we heard the miniature bark of a dog, distinct and
fine, as though distance had refined it as well as reduced it. We were
nearly round the loop the River makes about Millwall, and this unknown
region before us was Blackwall Reach by day, and Execution Dock used to
be dead ahead. To the east, over the waters, red light exploded
fan-wise and pulsed on the clouds latent above, giving them momentary
form. It was as though, from the place where it starts, the dawn had
been released too soon, and was at once recalled. "The gas works,"
said the skipper.

Still the