the surface, by reason of
the slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its sodden state, this
boat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that they
often did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the
man showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown arms
bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of a
looser kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard
and whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be made out of the
mud that begrimed his boat, still there was a business-like usage in his
steady gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of
her wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; they
were things of usage.

'Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. Keep her well afore the
sweep of it.'

Trusting to the girl's skill and making no use of the rudder, he eyed
the coming tide with an absorbed attention. So the girl eyed him. But,
it happened now, that a slant of light from the setting sun glanced into
the bottom of the boat, and, touching a rotten stain there which bore
some resemblance to the outline of a muffled human form, coloured it as
though with diluted blood. This caught the girl's eye, and she shivered.

'What ails you?' said the man, immediately aware of it, though so intent
on the advancing waters; 'I see nothing afloat.'

The red light was gone, the shudder was gone, and his gaze, which had
come back to the boat for a moment, travelled away again. Wheresoever
the strong tide met with an impediment, his gaze paused for an instant.
At every mooring-chain and rope, at every stationery boat or barge that
split the current into a broad-arrowhead, at the offsets from the piers
of Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steamboats as they beat
the filthy water, at the floating logs of timber lashed together lying
off certain wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry look. After a
darkening hour or so, suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold,
and he steered hard towards the Surrey shore.

Always watching his face, the girl instantly answered to the action in
her sculling; presently the boat swung round, quivered as from a sudden
jerk, and the upper half of the man was stretched out over the stern.

The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and over her
face, and, looking backward so that the front folds of this hood were
turned down the ri