he sun
hanging over it--all perfectly still--and then the white shutter came
down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves. I ordered the
chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again. Before it
stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of
infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A
complaining clamor, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears. The
sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap. I don't know
how it struck the others: to me it seemed as though the mist itself had
screamed, so suddenly, and apparently from all sides at once, did
this tumultuous and mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a hurried
outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short,
leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and obstinately
listening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence. 'Good God!
What is the meaning--?' stammered at my elbow one of the pilgrims,--a
little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers, who wore side-spring
boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks. Two others remained
open-mouthed a whole minute, then dashed into the little cabin, to rush
out incontinently and stand darting scared glances, with Winchesters at
'ready' in their hands. What we could see was just the steamer we
were on, her outlines blurred as though she had been on the point of
dissolving, and a misty strip of water, perhaps two feet broad, around
her--and that was all. The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our
eyes and ears were concerned. Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared; swept off
without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind.

"I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short, so as to
be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat at once if necessary.
'Will they attack?' whispered an awed voice. 'We will all be butchered
in this fog,' murmured another. The faces twitched with the strain, the
hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious
to see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black
fellows of our crew, who were as much strangers to that part of the
river as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The
whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of
being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row. The others had an
alert, naturally interested expression; but their faces were essentially
quiet, even those