VII

THE RAKE WHICH GROPED IN DARK WATERS

The afternoon was waning, but the hot bowl of the sky seemed to shut
down over the city more closely.

Farr held to the shaded sides of the streets, and yearned for a patch of
green and a tree and its shade.

At last he came into a section of the city where vast mills, one
succeeding another in rows which vanished in the distance, clacked
their everlasting staccato of hurrying looms, venting clamor from
the thousands of open windows. A canal of slow-moving, turbid water
intersected the city and fed its quota of power to each mill. The fenced
bank of the canal was green; and elms, languid in the fierce heat,
gave shade here and there with wilted leaves. The masses of brick which
inclosed the toilers within the mills puffed off tremulous heat-waves
and suggested that humanity must be baking in those gigantic ovens.

A high fence interposed between the canal and the street; the mill lawn
which extended between the canal and the shimmering brick walls was also
inclosed. Signs posted on the fence warned trespassers not to venture.

A bridge carried the street across the canal, and Farr stood there for a
time and watched the swirl of the water below. Then he sauntered on and
surveyed the expanse of mill lawn with appraising and envious gaze.

The young man climbed the canal fence, exhibiting more of his cool