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that here." He extended his hand.

Jeffers handed him the book. "Taking an interest in poetry, Cap'n?"

"Never you mind about that," Marsh replied, slipping the book into his pocket. "Ain't there any business to attend to in your office?"

"Certainly," said Jeffers. He took his leave.

Abner Marsh stood in the library for three or four minutes, feeling mighty odd; the poem had had a very unsettling effect on him. Maybe there was something to this poetry business after all, he thought. He resolved to look into the book at his leisure and figure it out for himself.

Marsh had his own errands to run, however, and they kept him busy through most of the afternoon and early evening. Afterward he forgot all about the book in his pocket. Karl Framm was going into New Orleans to sup at the St. Charles, and Marsh decided to join him. It was almost midnight when they returned to the Fevre Dream. Undressing up in his cabin, Marsh came upon the book again. He put it carefully on his bedside table, donned his nightshirt, and settled down to read a bit by candlelight.

"Darkness" seemed even more sinister by night, in the dim loneliness of his little steamer cabin, although the words on the page didn't have quite the cold menace that Jeffers had given them. Still, they disquieted him. He turned pages and read "Sennacherib" and "She Walks in Beauty" and some other poems, but his thoughts kept wandering into "Darkness." Despite the heat of the night, Abner Marsh had gooseflesh creeping up his arms.

In the front of the book, there was a picture of Byron. Marsh studied it. He looked pretty enough, dark and sensual like a Creole; it was easy to see why the women went for him so, even if he was supposed to be a gimp. Of course, he was a nobleman too. It said so right beneath his picture:

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

1788-1824

Abner Marsh studied Byron's face for a time, and found himself envying the poet's features. Beauty was never something he had experienced from within; if he dreamed of grand gorgeous steamers, perhaps it was because he so conspicuously lacked beauty himself. With his bulk, his warts, his flat squashed nose, Marsh had never had to worry over much about women neither. When he'd been younger, rafting and flatboating down the river, and even after he'd worked a spell on steamers. Marsh had frequented places in Natchez-under-the-hill and New Orleans where a riverman could find a night's fun for a reasonable price. And later, when Fevre Rivet Packets was going strong, there were some women in Galena and Dubuque and St. Paul who would have married him for the asking; good, stout, hard-faced widow women who knew the worth of a sound strong man like him, with all those steamboats. But they had lost interest quick enough after his misfortune, and anyway they had never been what he'd wanted. When Abner Marsh let himself think of such things, which wasn't often, he dreamed of women like the dark-eyed Creole ladies and dusky free quadroons of New Orleans, lithe and graceful and proud as his steamers.

Marsh snorted and blew out his candle. He tried to sleep. But his dreams were flushed and haunted; words echoed dimly and frighten-ingly in the darkened alleys of his mind.

...Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day.

...Gorging himself in gloom: no Love was left.

...men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation.

...a meal was brought, With blood.

...an astounding man.

Abner Marsh sat bolt upright in his bed, wide awake, listening to the thumping of his heart. "Damn," he muttered. He found a match, lit his bedside candle, and opened the book of poems to the page with Byron's picture. "Damn," he repeated.

Marsh dressed quickly. He yearned for company something fierce, for Hairy Mike's muscles and black iron billet, or Jonathon Jeffers and his sword cane. But this was between him and Joshua alone, and he had given his word not to talk to no one.

He splashed some water on his face, took up his hickory stick, and went out onto the deck, wishing he had a preacher on board, or even a cross. The book of poems was in his pocket. Far down the landing, another steamer was building steam and loading; Marsh could hear her roustabouts singing a slow, melancholy chant as they toted cargo across the planks.

At the door to Joshua's cabin, Abner Marsh raised his stick to knock, then hesitated, suddenly full of doubts.