vanished past. There is a man above at a high loophole, the topmost
cave of a warehouse which you can see has been exposed to commerce and
the elements for ages; he pulls in a bale pendulous from the cable of a
derrick. Below him one of the horses of a van tosses its nose-bag.
There is no other movement. A carman leans against an iron post, and
cuts bread and cheese with a clasp-knife. It was curious to hear that
steamer call, but we knew what it was. It was from a ship that went
down, we have lately heard, in the War, and her spectre reminds us,
from a voyage which is over, of men we shall see no more. But the call
comes again just where the Stairs, like a shining wedge of day, hold
the black warehouses asunder, and give us the light of the River and a
release to the outer world. And there, moving swiftly across the
brightness, goes a steamer outward bound.

That was what we wanted to know. She confirms it, and her signal, to
whomever it was made, carries farther than she would guess. It is
understood. The past for some of us now is our only populous and
habitable world, invisible to others, but alive with whispers for us.
Yet the sea still moves daily along the old foreshore, and ships still
come and go, and do not, like us, run aground on what now is not there.

II. A Midnight Voyage

Our voyage was to begin at midnight from near Limehouse Hole. The hour
and the place have been less promising in the beginning of many a
strange adventure. Where the voyage would end could not be said,
except that it would be in Bugsby's Reach, and at some time or other.
It was now ten o'clock, getting towards sailing time, and the way to
the foreshore was unlighted and devious. Yet it was somewhere near.
This area of still and empty night railed off from the glare of the
Commercial Road would be Limehouse Church. It is foolish to suppose
you know the Tower Hamlets because you have seen them by day. They
change. They are like those uncanny folk of the fables. At night,
wonderfully, they become something else, take another form, which has
never been more than glimpsed, and another character, so fabulous and
secret that it will support the tales of the wildest romanticist, who
rightly feels that if such yarns were told of 'Frisco or Timbuctoo they
might get found out. Was this the church? Three Chinamen were
disputing by its gate. Perhaps they were in disagreement as to where
the church would be in daylight.