With one arm around her companion to steady herself, she held her umbrella and bag tightly in her free hand. Now she pointed upward with her umbrella and said:
"Do you mind tellin' me, mister, what's thet fruit they're a-dryin' up on thet meetin'-house?"
The horseman glanced upward for a moment and then replied, with something of wonder in his voice:
"Why, those are men's heads, dame. Know you not London Bridge and the traitors' poles yet?"
"Oh, good land!" said the horrified woman, and shut her mouth tightly. Evidently England was not the sort of country she had pictured it.
They rode into a long tunnel under the stones of this massive tower and emerged to find themselves upon the bridge. Again and again did they pass under round-arched tunnels bored, as it were, through gloomy buildings six or seven stories high. These covered the bridge from end to end, and they swarmed with a squalid humanity, if one might judge from the calls and cries that resounded in the vaulted passageways and interior courts.
As they finally came out from beneath the last great rookery, the sisters found themselves in London, the great and busy city of four hundred thousand inhabitants.
They were on New Fish Street, and their nostrils gave them witness of its name at once. Farther up the slight ascent before them they met other and far worse smells, and Rebecca was disgusted.
"Where are we goin'?" she asked.
"Why, to your mistress' residence, of course."