‘I am helpless, and in your power; I can only do as you wish.’
‘It is well,’ he said as he stepped down and opened the carriage door.
I was glad enough to get out and be able to stretch my cramped limbs. The other man followed, and during the next few minutes he and M. Legros kept close to me, one walking on either side of me.
My first glance round showed me that we had alighted some twenty or thirty yards from a broad, sluggish-flowing river, which I at once said to myself could be none other than the Thames. A thin white mist lay on the water, through which only the faintest outlines of the opposite shore were discernible. In mid-stream, a small steamer lay moored, from the funnel of which a thin black pennon of smoke was lazily trailing. We had alighted at a kind of wharf, roughly paved and shut in by some half-dilapidated buildings, which looked unspeakably forlorn and desolate in the light of early morning. Some half-score men, dressed in guernseys and high boots, were lounging about, their hands buried deep in their pockets, looking on with a stolidity which it seemed as if nothing could rouse into animation, at the proceedings of the party of which I formed one, which were conducted without the slightest pretence at secrecy. A little way in the background stood the plumeless hearse with its two black horses.
We three men, I in the middle, walked down to the edge of the wharf. The tide was low; and it was not till we were close to the water that I perceived a couple of boats which seemed to be waiting our arrival. The first looked like an ordinary ship’s boat; in it were seated some half-dozen men resting on their oars, with a cockswain in the stern. The second boat was a broad old-fashioned tub; but I could not repress a shudder when I saw the coffin which had been brought down in the hearse laid along its bottom. Two men were in this boat, one seated at the head, and the other at the foot, of the coffin.
There was barely time to note all this before, in compliance with a whispered word from Legros, who still kept by my side, I descended four or five slimy tide-washed steps, and stepped into the first boat, followed closely by my companions. As soon as we had seated ourselves, a signal was given; the men dipped their oars, and a moment later the ragged wharf and its staring denizens were left behind. And now it was I first became aware that we had the other boat with its awful freight in tow. It glided after us through the morning mist, as though the secret it held was one from which we might never more escape.
Our boat headed in a straight line from the wharf. I had undergone so many surprises during the last few hours that it was only one more added to the number to find that our destination was the steamer which was anchored out in mid-stream. Five minutes later, I found myself on board, and, at the invitation of Legros, I at once followed him below. He conducted me into a handsomely fitted up saloon, and then left me. It could not have been more than a few minutes after this when the engine gave its first palpitating throb, and the third stage of my strange journey had begun.
Whither were we bound? What would be the duration of our voyage? And what possible object could my captors have in taking me so far away from home? These were questions that put themselves to me again and again; and then I thought of the fate of poor Karavich, and my heart as I did so grew faint within me.
It was all an unfathomable mystery, and the more I strove to find some ray of light to guide me through its mazes, the more bewildered I became. In order to relieve in some measure the burden of my thoughts, I began to peer through the port-holes of the cabin, one after another; but there was little to be seen to gratify my curiosity. A dim line of desolate flats on the one hand; on the other, an equally dreary expanse of far-reaching shore, with here and there a few scattered buildings, from some of which sprung huge chimneys, which were already belching forth black volumes of smoke to the morning air. It had begun to rain by this time; but there seemed to be scarcely the faintest breath of wind; the quick soft pulsing of the engines told me that we were now making rapid progress through the water.
I had been about half an hour alone, when I was rejoined by Legros. He was all smiles and amiability. He gave me the impression of a man from whose mind some burden which had pressed heavily on it had been suddenly lifted. There was no longer that strained intense look in his eyes—that air of watchful suspicion which had been so noticeable in him earlier on, had altogether vanished. He was, if possible, more of an enigma to me under this new aspect than he had been before.