“Want to mind where you’re steppin’ tonight, Cap’n,” the watchman hailed him as he passed the dock gates; “it’s thick, an’ no mistake—thick as ever I see it!”
Thick wasn’t the word for it! Once away from the fights and noise of the road, the darkness seemed like something you could feel—a solid mass of clammy, clinging moisture, catching at the throat like a cold hand, getting into the backs of your eyes and making them ache and smart. You couldn’t see your hand before your face.
Broughton groped his way along the narrow, slimy causeway which lay between the stacks of piled-up lumber, exuding their sharp, damp, resinous fragrance, and the intense darkness, broken occasionally by a vague tremulous reflection where some ship’s lights contrived to pierce it, which brooded over the unseen wa
