FISHERS OF MEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12242, 11 April 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

FISHERS OF MEN.

It was an Lour before the dawn, and the blackness of night was gradually inciting into a translucent grey. Over the silent highway of the Thames hung a thin, shifting mist like white smoke, through which were reflected blurred images of the lights on Blackfriars Bridge and the lanterns of barges moored alongside the wharves. The buildings on the riverside loomed out darkly, their daylight hideousness hidden, by the cloak of night, so that now'they were invested with a sombre grandeur, towering grimly over the water, great masses of blackness, with here and there a ghostly learn of white, as the riverside lights fell upon a stone frontage or a whitewashed wall. In the middle of the stream small tosher" tugs sped swiftly down the tide. When they had passed silence would reign again, broken onlv by the lap-lap of the water against the wooden piers, until suddenly, from further down the river, a wild, piercing siren-shriek would ring out; followed by a deep, booming answer from a bigger vessel. THEEE FISHERS WENT SAILING. As the first" pink flush of dawn glimmered over the Pool a small boat shot out of a low shed by a wharf on the south bank. It was a Jieavy tug-boat, but a single rower with a long, silent sweep of oars made her nose burrow through the water swiftly and steadily. She did not go out in mid-stream, but clung close to the wharf for a time, until, once, when a dark object came floating down the tide, she pulled out to meet it. But, leaving the object, whatever it was, to go its way down-stream she slunk back to the black shadows of the riverside. She seemed a prey to conflicting emotions, like a woman at a busy crossing, who ventures half-way over and then darts back again to the kerbstone, doingi the same thing again at some point higher up the road. She seemed, to have no guiding, principle, her nose changing its direction for 110 apparent reason, and her black body wriggling round corners of the quays, dodging between the great hulks, now shooting across the bows of a barge, 11 tw hanging astern of a stationary dredger. And all this while the three men in the boat let no sound awake the echoes of the river, the oars dipping noiselessly, into the inky waters, 110 hoarse shout, or snatch of "sailors' song, calling notice to their strange doings. For there was something out of the ordinary in their work; whatever it was. No self-respecting boat goes staggering about a river like a drunken lout, or sneaking about wharves o' night like some gutter thief. The light from a passing tug fell on the mail with the oars, revealing a -bearded fellow with great bushy brows, beneath which gleamed a pair of glittering, snakelike eyes. As the light had flashed 011 him he Was smiling, a hideous grin that stretched from ear to ear, outlined by a double row of White fangs, with here and there a black gap between them. Another mail sat in the stern, a short, red-haired man, who sat sucking an empty pipe, while on his knees lay a long coil of rope, with a great hook on the end of it. Stretched on his stomach in the bows, and leaning right over the prow, was the third occupant of the j boat. Ib was a boy of some thirteen years. He lay there motionless, and but for the eye's which roved about the stream with a look of petrified terror he Seemed lifeless. j THE THING IN THE WATER,. The two men spoke ill whispers. . "No luck, to-night, .Guzzler." " Wait a bit. 'Tain't often we go back : empty-handed. .■■ ~ I ~ y " I heard tell, of two , off . the bridge a 'morning back. They must be rolliii' about somewheres." ( * .. .. The black-bearded man called over bik shoulder to the boy m the bows. "Keep your eyes open, Sammy. D'yer see anyfink?", The boy answered back with a hoarse whisper: "There was a splash 'a moment back off the bank by Moses' Wharf, and I thought I 'eard a voice. Look! 0 crikey! See, it's n-comiii' this way." He gave a shudder, and his voice elided with a gasp. , • The man witlV the oars turned the boat's nose, and with long, powerful strokes sent her quivering towards the whal'fside. "Look; it's come up again!" whispered the boy. "It's a woman!" • . - The boat made a sudden dash, and theft swept round in a semi-circle. ".Throw.out your line, Guzzler." The red-haired man leant over the boat's side,, so that the rowlocks ..were within a few inches of,the water. Then he threw out his coil of rope so that the iron hook at the end of it fell with a sharp splash into the water. . , " Have you got 'er?" A splutter of hoarse oaths .was the answer, and the rope was qui 'kly drawn in; while the men scanned the water with greedy eves,.. _ Then another oath was rapped out by the, red-haired man, and he pointed to a., sudden bubbling and swirling, ten yard'* away. " There she is. Pull by your left." I'ISH IN the THAMES. ( . ..Again, the ,boat , swerved rojmd and then glided towards a shapeless Jobject ; thinning round, and round, on .the..water, Again the iron hook, was tin-own, ..and this time grappled the tiling of, horror. , 0 > ...." Pull in, sonny," said the man with the oars. vi . . _ ..... , : . , The ; red-haired .man, pulled .in,,his rope gently and steadily, lite a fisherman handling, his line. . ._ lt ... ._. The boy. in the bows "squirmed round, gazing over the side,, with chattering teeth. "It's,a woman," he said. "I know'd it was a woman," , ... „ ... And.a, Woman, it was, or had been.She bumped against the side of the boat, her hair ' floating but upon the stream, and a black dress spread out in rippling folds. Her eyes were open, and gazed up with a glassy stare at the man.who had hauled her in. , The .grey light of the, dawn revealed her facfe bobbing tip and down in the water —a girl's face, as beautiful in its absolute whiteness as an angel face carved in stone, calm and placid and innocent, the waters of death having- washed out. the lines of agony and sin which perhaps had disfigured it in life. . , , The red-haired, man. seized her , dress, and the. black-bearded, fellow, slipping his oars, helped to drag her into the boat.. . , ...As the light of day,flooded the river the boat with its still burden sh'ot alongside the pier at Blackfriars, „ and the red-haired man stepped out to notify. his find to the police-. and,, to claim his reward. . ../'.lt's five bob, for, a dead Api,".. lie remarked, „"Jbut n,qt a.Jbrojvn for. a,live 'un." Which seems a curious arrangement.Dv Mail. . . W