Explore "The Turn of the Tide" by Fred M. White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Something big and broad loomed out of the darkness, and as his eyes became accustomed to the thick murk, Gilmour could make out a shadowy outline that presently resolved itself into a barge. She was rather a large craft for her kind, and, so far as Gilmour could see, she was riding at anchor at the end of a string of barges which were looped to one another with hawsers. Then, very quietly, the motor-boat stole under the counter of the barge, and lay there, scraping her sides on the swell of the tide so that it was possible to hold on by the ladder and listen to what was going on.
Gilmour thrust his hand in his waistcoat pocket and produced a watch with a luminous face. It was just on ten o'clock by the tell-tale hands, and Gilmour made a rapid calculation in his head. There was half an hour or more to wait yet, by the end of which time Gilmour reckoned that things would be sufficiently advanced in the cabin of the lighter for him and his companion to set about their work without any fear from any of those on board, or of hindrance from a passing police patrol.