, entering the
restaurant, jostled him at the door. He turned with his face towards me
at this instant by accident, and I saw that he was as pale as death,
and had a queer flush of color at the eyes. His manner was alternately
strangely alert and curiously preoccupied, and altogether I knew not
what to make of him. The man who drove the cab had evidently had his
orders beforehand, and knew exactly where he was expected to go, for
he started off without a word. We seemed, to my mind, to travel
interminably, for in the course of the journey I fell rather more than
half asleep, and at wakeful and observant intervals found myself in
portions of the town which, though I have always boasted to know London
pretty well, were altogether strange to me. First I made out, with a
kind of half-wakeful start, that we were at Whitechapel, and waking, as
it seemed to me, a wink or two later, I found that we were in a region
of docks and public-houses, with here and there a sulky gleam of
dock-water or of river showing under the dark sky--rare passengers
and rarer tenements. But, of course, I had not the faintest reason for
suspecting anybody, and we went rumbling on, I pretty sleepy, and
pretty full of a satisfactory dinner after a hungry day, and Brunow
and Ruffiano silent, as it seemed to me, nearly the whole length of the
road. After, perhaps, an hour and a half's driving, Brunow woke me by
calling impatiently to the cabman, and I came to the full possession
of myself in time to see the vehicle swerve suddenly to the right. My
prolonged drowse half refreshed me, and the cold, wet air which blew up
from the river through the window Brunow had opened fell freshly on
my cheek. I could see the river gleaming ahead, with spaces of liquid
blackness in it, and a red or green light burning here and there. It
was still raining, and the clouds were heavy in the south and west. We
stopped almost at the river-side, before a tumble-down-looking little
public-house, and here Brunow alighted hastily. A hulking fellow leaned
against the door-jamb smoking a short pipe; and Brunow addressing an
inquiry to him, he jerked his thumb towards the river, and answered:
"Just got steam up. Start in an hour at the outside."

"Is there no boat?" Brunow asked.

"Boat?" said the man, spitting lazily into the road; "boats enough, if
you care to pay for 'em."

"You hear," said Brunow, turning, and Ruffiano, dragging his gaunt
length out of the cab and stumbling