His feet sank down into the thick slime, and the muddy water reached to his knees. There was a nauseous odour in the dreary passage, and the filthy fluid was very thick. These circumstances convinced him that it was low water in the river Thames; and by examining the masonry forming the sides of the sewers, he saw that the tide was running out. He therefore resolved to follow the course of the muddy stream, with the hope that he might at length reach one of the mouths by which the sewers discharge their contents into the river.
Armed with his stick to protect himself against the rats as well as to sound his way so as to escape any hole or abrupt depth that there might chance to be in the bottom of the sewer,—and holding the lamp in his left hand, the great peer of England pursued his appalling path in a channel seven feet wide and beneath a vaulting twelve feet high.
From time to time the sudden rush of a number of vermin along a ledge by the side of the channel, and then the sound of their plunge into the slimy water, startled him to such a degree that he almost dropped his lamp: and then the conviction which flashed to his mind that if he lost his light, he should be inevitably devoured by those vermin, caused such a chill to pass through him—as if ice were unexpectedly placed upon his heart—that his courage was oftentimes nearly subdued altogether.
But he thought of his half-brother who had manifested so much generosity towards him,—he thought of her whom he had promised to love as a sister,—and he also remembered that were he to retrace his steps, even if he could find the way back, he should be returning to a dungeon:—of all this he thought—and he went on—on, in that revolting and perilous maze!
Yes: with lamp held high up, and stick groping in the filthy mud—stirring up nauseating odours,—on—on went the daring, enterprising, chivalrous nobleman—breathing an infected and almost stifling air,—an air formed of such noxious gases, that it might explode at any moment, ignited by the lamp!
But, hark! what is that rumbling sound—like thunder at a vast distance?
Arthur pauses—and listens.
The truth in a few moments flashed to his mind: he was beneath a street in which vehicles were moving. Oh! now he felt convinced—even if he had entertained any doubts before—that he was in London.
Watching the progress of the slimy stream, he turned first to the left, up a channel that branched off from the one which he had originally entered;—then he turned to the right into another—the hollow rumbling sounds overhead gradually increasing in volume and power.
Suddenly he beholds a light glancing upon the putrescent surface of the slimy stream through which he is wading knee-deep. That light is half-a-dozen yards in front of him—flickering playfully.