The boy ran into the water to steady the beat while Gray handed in Ada, who submitted passively. Then he stepped on board himself, and the boy, clambering in after him, pushed the boat out into the stream.
“Where to, your honour?” said the boy, as he settled the sculls in the rollocks, and gave, a sweep that turned the boat’s head from the shore.
“To the stairs at Westminster-bridge,” said Gray.
The boy nodded, and the boat, under his good management, was soon gliding up the stream in the wished-for direction.
The sun was now rapidly sinking, and tall dark shadows lay upon the surface of the Thames, making the waters look as if they were composed of different kinds of fluids of varying colours and densities. Then the last edge of the sun’s disc, which had been reposing on the horizon for a moment, suddenly disappeared, and a cold wind on the instant swept across the face of the river, curling it up into small wrinkles, and giving a gentle, undulating motion to the boat.
Not a word was spoken, and the small wherry might have been occupied by the dead, for all the signs of life or animation given by Gray or Ada.
That Gray’s thoughts partook of the apprehensive might have been guessed by the nervous manner in which he clutched the side of the boat, and the distracted movement of the fingers of his other hand with which he held the collar of his cloak across the lower part of his face.
Ada was pale as a marble statue; but there was an intellectuality and determination about her small, compressed lips and commanding brow that would have won admiration from all, and enraptured a poet or a painter. She sat calm and still. There was no nervousness, no trembling, no alarm; and it was the absence of all those natural and feminine feelings which cast a cold chill to the heart of Jacob Gray, and filled him with a terror of he knew not what.
He could not for more than one instant of time keep his eyes off Ada’s face. There was a something depicted there that while he dreaded, he seemed, by some supernatural power, compelled to look upon. Like one fascinated by the basilisk eye of a serpent, he could not withdraw his gaze; although pale, firm, and slightly tinged with a death-like hue by the strange colours that lingered in the sky from the sunset, that young and lovely face brought to his recollection one which the mere thought of was an agony, and the name of whom was engraven upon his heart in undying letters of eternal flame.
The fresh breeze caught as it passed the long glossy ringlets of Ada’s hair, and blew them in wanton playfulness across her face, but still she moved not. The night darkened, and the shadows of the buildings and shipping crossed her eyes, but she stirred not. Her whole soul, with all its varied perceptions and powers seemed to be engrossed by some one great idea that would admit of no sort of companionship, and for the time reigned alone within the chambers of her brain.