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They went on inexorably and the creaking of the oars in the rowlocks of the boat that had picked him up seemed to him to be the creaking of his arms and legs. . . . When Vane opened his eyes on reality again, he found himself in a strange room. For a few moments he lay very still, groping back into a half-world of grey shadows.
A search showed the absence of my revolver and pocket-knife. The first Yellow Handkerchief had taken; but the knife had been lost in the sand. I was hunting for it when the sound of rowlocks came to my ears. At first, of course, I thought of Charley; but on second thought I knew Charley would be calling out as he rowed along. A sudden premonition of danger seized me.
The long roof and massive tower of St Paul's stood dark against the vivid splendour of that sky, and every timber in the scaffolding showed like a black lattice across the crimson and sulphur of raging flames. Fareham looked round, without moving his sculls from the rowlocks. "A great fire in verity, mistress! Would God it meant the fulfilment of prophecy!" "What prophecy, sir?"
It was as she thought; a stooping figure, dim and hazy in the morning fog, which blurred the nearest outlines and veiled the more distant, was untying one of the boats, and had slipped the oars into the rowlocks. "Going fishing early," she said to herself. "I wonder which of 'em it is. They are all alike in this light." Then she stood and looked out upon the morning world.
But, more than all, my father and I alike sailed for the love of ship and sea, caring little for the gain that came, so long as the salt spray was over us, and we might hear the hum of the wind in the canvas, or the steady roll and click of the long oars in the ship's rowlocks, and take our chance of long fights with wind and wave on our stormy North Sea coasts.
Then his eyes fell on a pair of oars lashed, together with their metal rowlocks, to the sides of his raft. In another minute he had shipped these and was pulling with all his might away from that ill-omened neighbourhood. The progress of his clumsy craft was painfully slow; but it did move, and at the end the dreaded ice monster was beyond both sight and hearing.
She looked at him still smiling, but her look, her smile, were more of a veil than a revelation. "With you! What an idea!" she said, softly mocking. "Ah, don't!" he said. "I'm not like that, Juliet!" She held up the cigarette. "Quite ready? Ah, Dick! Don't don't upset the boat!" For the sculls floated loose again in the rowlocks. He had her by the wrists, the arms, the shoulders.
The object of the enlarged portion, which of course comes inside the rowlocks, appears to be the double purpose of balancing the weight of the longer portion outside, and also for preventing the oar at all times from escaping into the water.
I have been strolling half the afternoon along the river bank, watching the boats passing up and down; hearing the shrill cries of coxes, the measured plash of oars, the rhythmical rattle of rowlocks, intermingled at intervals with the harsh grinding of the chain-ferries. Five-and-twenty years ago I was rowing here myself in one of these boats, and I do not wish to renew the experience.
Through this an eye was now directed, while only the blades of the oars were to be seen projecting from the boat's sides as they reposed in their rowlocks. Encouraged by the seeming apathy and inertness of the crew, the swimming savages paused not to consider of consequences, but continued their daring course as if they had apprehended neither risk nor resistance.
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