I was far from sure that I was not in a dream.  We rattled with great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all idea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships.  At length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several men who looked like a mixture of police and sailors.  Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I could discern the words, “Found Drowned”; and this and an inscription about drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place.

I had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the indulgence of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays.  I remained quiet, but what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget.  And still it was like the horror of a dream.  A man yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some slippery steps—­as if to look at something secret that he had to show.  They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared!

After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to know and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to warm himself.  The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it made, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little rush towards me.  It never did so—­and I thought it did so, hundreds of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and probably was less—­but the thought shuddered through me that it would cast my mother at the horses’ feet.

Mr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat.  “Don’t you be alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here,” he said, turning to me.  “I only want to have everything in train and to know that it is in train by looking after it myself.  Get on, my lad!”

We appeared to retrace the way we had come.  Not that I had taken note of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging from the general character of the streets.  We called at another office or station for a minute and crossed the river again.  During the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single moment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if