“I will take you up in a minute,” interrupted Mrs. Morris. “When Dr. Gray has gone.” Then addressing me, she said: “My husband says that you can get down to the tow-path through that alley nearly opposite. There is a flight of steps at the end which comes right out on the path.”
I thanked her for the direction, and having bidden farewell to the spinsters, was once more escorted along the passage and finally launched into the outer world.
CHAPTER IX.
A Strange Misadventure
Although I had been in harness but a few weeks, it was with a pleasant sense of freedom that I turned from the door and crossed the road towards the alley. My time was practically my own, for, though I was remaining with Dr. Cornish until the end of the week, he was now in charge, and my responsibilities were at an end.
The alley was entered by an arched opening, so narrow that I had never suspected it of being a public thoroughfare, and I now threaded it with my shoulders almost touching the walls. Whither it finally led I have no idea, for when I reached another arched opening in the left hand wall and saw that this gave on a flight of stone steps, I descended the latter and found myself on the tow-path. At the foot of the steps I stood awhile and looked about me. The moon was nearly full, and shone brightly on the opposite side of the canal, but the tow-path was in deep shadow, being flanked by a high wall, behind which were the houses of the adjoining streets. Looking back—that is, to my left—I could just make out the bridge and the adjoining buildings, all their unlovely details blotted out by the thin night-haze, which reduced them to mere flat shapes of grey. A little nearer, one or two spots of ruddy light with wavering reflections beneath them, marked the cabin windows of the sloop, and her mast, rising above the grey obscurity, was clearly visible against the sky.
Naturally, I turned in that direction, sauntering luxuriously and filling my pipe as I went. Doubtless, by day the place was sordid enough in aspect—though it is hard to vulgarize a navigable water-way—but now, in the moon-lit haze, the scene was almost romantic. And it was astonishingly quiet and peaceful. From above, beyond the high wall, the noises of the streets came subdued and distant, like sounds from another world; but here there was neither sound nor movement. The tow-path was utterly deserted, and the only sign of human life was the glimmer of light from the sloop.
It was delightfully restful. I found myself treading the gravel lightly not to disturb the grateful silence, and as I strolled along, enjoying my pipe, I let my thoughts ramble idly from one topic to another. Somewhere above me, in that rather mysterious house, Simon Bendelow was lying in his narrow bed, the wasted, yellow face looking out into the darkness through that queer little celluloid window, or perhaps Miss Dewsnep and her friend were even now taking their farewell peep at him. I looked up, but, of course, the house was not visible from the tow-path, nor was I now able to guess at its position.
A little farther, and the hull of the sloop came clearly into view, and nearly opposite to it, on the tow-path, I could see some kind of shed or hut against the wall, with a derrick in front of it overhanging a little quay. When I had nearly reached the shed, I passed a door in the wall, which apparently communicated with some house in one of the streets above. Then I came to the shed, a small wooden building which probably served as a lighterman’s office, and I noticed that the derrick swung from one of the corner-posts. But at this moment my attention was attracted by sounds of mild revelry from across the canal. Some one in the sloop’s deck-house had burst into song.
I stepped out on to the little quay and stood at the edge, looking across at the homely curtained windows and wondering what the interior of the deck-house looked like at this moment. Suddenly my ear caught an audible creak from behind me. I was in the act of turning to see whence it came when something struck me a heavy, glancing blow on the arm, crashed to the ground, and sent me flying over the edge of the quay.
Fortunately the water here was not more than four feet deep, and as I had plunged in feet first, and am a good swimmer, I never lost control of myself. In a moment I was standing up with my head and shoulders out of water, not particularly alarmed, though a good deal annoyed and much puzzled as to what had happened. My first care was to recover my hat, which was floating forlornly close by, and the next was to consider how I should get ashore. My left arm was numb from the blow and was evidently useless for climbing. Moreover, the face of the quay was of smooth concrete, as was also the wall below the tow-path. But I remembered having passed a pair of boat-steps some fifty yards back, and decided to make for them. I had thought of hailing the sloop, but as the droning song still came from the deck-house, it was clear that the Dutchmen had heard nothing, and I did not think it worth while to disturb them. Accordingly, I set forth for the steps, walking with no little difficulty over the soft, muddy bottom, keeping close to the side and steadying myself with my right hand, with which I could just reach the edge of the coping.