I had entered a cul-de-sac.

A rickety gate gave access to a descending flight of stone steps, the
bottom invisible in the denser shadows of an archway, beyond which, I
doubted not, lay the river.

Still uninspired by any definite design, I tried the gate and found
that it was unlocked. Like some wandering soul, as it has since seemed
to me, I descended. There was a lamp over the archway, but the glass
was broken, and the rain apparently had extinguished the light; as I
passed under it, I could hear the gas whistling from the burner.

Continuing my way, I found myself upon a narrow wharf with the Thames
flowing gloomily beneath me. A sort of fog hung over the river,
shutting me in. Then came an incident.

Suddenly, quite near, there arose a weird and mournful cry--a cry
indescribable, and inexpressibly uncanny!

I started back so violently that how I escaped falling into the river
I do not know to this day. That cry, so eerie and so wholly
unexpected, had unnerved me; and realizing the nature of my
surroundings, and the folly of my presence alone in such a place, I
began to edge back toward the foot of the steps, away from the thing
that cried; when--a great white shape uprose like a phantom before
me! . . .

There are few men, I suppose, whose lives have been crowded with so
many eerie happenings as mine, but this phantom thing which grew out
of the darkness, which seemed about to envelope me, takes rank in my