David crossed the tracks and found that on the side of the embankment opposite the shed there was solid ground and what once had been a wharf.

He advanced over this cautiously, and as he did so the clouds disappeared, and in the full light of the moon he saw a bayou broadening into a river, and made fast to the decayed and rotting wharf an ocean-going tug.

It was from her deck that the man, in lighting his pipe, had shown his face.

At the thought of a warm engine-room and the company of his fellow creatures, David's heart leaped with pleasure.
He advanced quickly.

And then something in the appearance of the tug, something mysterious, secretive, threatening, caused him to halt.