What I had done was barely even manslaughter at the
worst. But at the best the man was not dead. Raffles was bringing him to
life again. Alive or dead, I could trust him to Raffles, and go about my
own part of the business, as indeed I did in a kind of torpor of the
normal sensibilities.
Not much do I remember of that dreamy interval, until the dream became
the nightmare that was still in store. The river ran like a broad road
under the stars, with hardly a glimmer and not a floating thing upon it.
The boathouse stood at the foot of a file of poplars, and I only found it
by stooping low and getting everything over my own height against the
stars. The door was not locked; but the darkness within was such that I
could not see my own hand as it wound the windlass inch by inch. Between
the slow ticking of the cogs I listened jealously for foreign sounds, and
heard at length a gentle dripping across the breadth of the boathouse;
that was the last of the "portcullis," as Raffles called it, rising out
of the river; indeed, I could now see the difference in the stretch of
stream underneath, for the open end of the boathouse was much less dark
than mine; and when the faint band of reflected starlight had broadened
as I thought enough, I ceased winding and groped my way down the steps
into the boat.
But inaction at such a crisis was an intolerable state, and the last
thing I wanted was time to think.
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