"Look now!"
For the dog had sprung upon the parapet and stood there, with neck extended and body quivering as he saluted the on-coming tug.
"'E can't see . . . No, surely, it can't be—" said Tilda, staring.
The tug was so near by this time that they could read her name, Severn Belle, on the bows. Two men stood on her deck—one aft at the tiller (for she had no wheel-house), the other a little forward of midships, leaning over the port bulwarks; this latter a stoker apparently, or an engineer, or a combination of both; for he was capless, and wore a smoke-grimed flannel shirt, open at the breast.
Tilda could see this distinctly as the tug drew near; for the man was looking up, staring steadily at the dog on the parapet. His chest was naked. A cake of coal-dust obscured his features.
"It can't be," said Tilda; and then, as the tug drew close, she flung herself against the parapet. "Bill! Oh, Bill!"
"Cheer-oh!" answered a voice, now already among the echoes of the arch.
"Oh, Bill! . . . Where?" She had run across the roadway. "Oh, Bill— take us!"
The boy running too—yet not so quickly as 'Dolph—caught a vision of a face upturned in blankest amazement as tug and barges swept down stream out of reach. But still Tilda hailed, beating back the dog, to silence his barking.
"Oh, Bill! Where're yer goin'?"