The creaking of the oars sounded muffled and ghostly, and none of the
men in the boat seemed to be inclined to converse. Heading across
stream they made for the unseen promontory of the Isle of Dogs.
Navigation was suspended, and they reached midstream without seeing a
ship's light. Then came the damp wind again to lift the fog, and ahead
of them they discerned one of the General Steam Navigation Company's
boats awaiting an opportunity to make her dock at the head of Deptford
Creek. The clamor of an ironworks on the Millwall shore burst loudly
upon their ears, and away astern the lights of the Surrey Dock shone
out once more. Hugging the bank they pursued a southerly course, and
from Limehouse Reach crept down to Greenwich Reach.
Fog closed in upon them, a curtain obscuring both light and sound.
When the breeze came again it had gathered force, and it drove the
mist before it in wreathing banks, and brought to their ears a dull
lowing and to their nostrils a farmyard odor from the cattle pens.
Ghostly flames, leaping and falling, leaping and falling, showed where
a gasworks lay on the Greenwich bank ahead.
Eastward swept the river now, and fresher blew the breeze. As they
rounded the blunt point of the "Isle" the fog banks went swirling past
them astern, and the lights on either shore showed clearly ahead.
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