thin rippling line some fifty yards ahead told us where it
ended. We found it impossible to push the heavy boat over the shallows.
The clouds were deepening, and the night was coming rapidly. Setting the
Kid to work digging with an oar at the prow, I pushed and wriggled the
stern until I saw galaxies. Thus alternately digging and pushing, we at
last reached navigable depths.

It was now quiet and dark. Low thunder was rolling, and now and then
vivid flashes of lightning discovered the moaning river to us--ghastly
and forbidding in the momentary glare. We decided to pull in for the
night; but in what direction should we pull? A drizzling rain had begun
to fall, and the sheet lightning glaring through it only confused
us--more than the sooty darkness that showered in upon us after the
rapid flashes. We sat still and waited. In the intermittent silences,
the rain hissed on the surface of the river like a shower of innumerable
heated pebbles. Ahead of us we heard the dull booming of the cut banks,
as the current undermined ponderous ledges of sand.

Now, a boat that happens under a falling cut bank, passes at once into
the region of forgotten things. The boat would follow the main current;
the main current flows always under the cut banks. How long would it
take us to get there? Which way should we pull? Put a simpler question:
In which way were we moving? We hadn't the least conception of
direction. For us the night had only one dimension--_out_!

Finally a great booming and splashing sounded to our left, and the boat
rocked violently a moment after. We grasped the oars and pulled blindly
in what we supposed to be the opposite direction, only to be met by
another roar of falling sand from that quarter.

There seemed to be nothing to do but have faith in that divinity which
is said to superintend the goings and coming of fools and drunkards.
Therefore we abandoned the oars, twiddled our thumbs, and let her drift.
We couldn't even smoke, for the rain was now coming down merrily. The
Kid thought it a great lark, and laughed boisterously at our
predicament. By flashes I saw the drenched grin under his dripping nose.
But for me, some lines written by that sinister genius, Wainwright, came
back with a new force, and clamored to be spoken:

_"Darkness--sooty, portentous darkness--shrouds the whole scene; as if
through a horrid rift in a murky ceiling, a rainy deluge--'sleety flaw,
discolored water'--streams down amain, spread