For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

The grey light was growing clearer, and the mangroves taking shape among the fleecy mist, when Austin stood looking down upon the creek in the heavy, windless morning. There was no brightness in the dingy sky, which hung low above the mastheads, but the water gleamed curiously, and no longer lapped along the steamer's rusty plates. It lay still beneath her hove-up bilge, giving up a hot, sour smell, and Jefferson, who came out of the skipper's room, touched Austin as he gazed at it.

"The stream should have been setting down by now. Something's backing up the ebb," he said. "A shift of wind along the shore, most likely. The rain's coming!"