Dizzily the would-be suicide stumbled into the little dingy cabin, found the thing that purported to be a bed, and in half a minute was sound asleep, deaf even to the torrent of language which the appearance of the tug and her barges seemed to provoke all along the great watery highway.
CHAPTER IV
UP RIVER
Bordered by cities, and hoarse
With a thousand cries, is its stream.
And we on its breast, our minds
Are confused as the cries which we hear,
Changing and shot as the sights that we see.
—MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The dawn was misty gray and the cold piercing when Doggett awoke his second-in-command. The barge flotilla was just passing under Hammersmith Bridge.
Felix, dazed with sleep, arose, and, as directed, lit a paraffin stove, boiled a kettle, and made tea. Then he frizzled bacon in a frying-pan, an accomplishment which was by no means new to him. He took his own breakfast, a few hurried mouthfuls, and then, carrying his mug and plate, went to relieve his master at the tiller.
As he passed, he stooped to where Rona slept, motionless in her nest of hay. She was lying quite still, her lashes, with a bronze luster on their blackness, penciled sharply upon her cheek, flushed with warm slumber. The rosy tint made the face appear far more pleasing than it had seemed last night. She panted now and then, as if it hurt her to draw breath. But, as far as he could tell, she was not feverish.
He went on to his post, wrapped himself up in old sacks, and set himself with determination to his work. The steersman of the barge immediately in front hailed him, and wanted to know, in a particularly rich vernacular, whether he were going to pursue the Old Man's policy of steering in the one exact way most calculated to annoy the man ahead. Felix had been in queer places, and though bargees were not among his experiences, convicts, it was to be presumed, ran them pretty close in the way of language. His reply was of the right kind, and given in the right tone. When Doggett, munching his bacon, heard it, he gave a hoarse, inward chuckle, and decided that his new "boy" was not such a green hand after all.
Having finished his breakfast, the Old Man turned in; and from that time until ten o'clock, when he had been bidden to call him, Felix sat guiding the heavy, sulky barge upstream. The mist cleared away little by little, the sun came up, and the day broke out clear and gay, though very cold. Just as he came off his watch, Rona awoke and called him. He hurried to her side, knelt down, and took the warm little hand thrust out to him.
"How do you feel?" he asked.