THE DRAGON'S SHADOW The lowdah would have set his dirty sails without delay, for the fair wind was already drooping; but at the first motion he found himself deposed, and a usurper in command, at the big steering-paddle.

Captain Kneebone, his cheeks white and suddenly old beneath the untidy stubble of his beard, had taken charge.

In momentary danger of being cut off downstream, or overtaken from above, he kept the boat waiting along the oozy shore.

Puckering his eyes, he watched now the land, and now the river, silent, furtive, and keenly perplexed, his head on a swivel, as though he steered by some nightmare chart, or expected some instant and transforming sight.
Not until the sun touched the western hills, and long shadows from the bank stole out and turned the stream from bright copper to vague iron-gray, did he give over his watch.

He left the tiller, with a hopeless fling of the arm.
"Do as ye please," he growled, and cast himself down on deck by the thatched house.