The current dragged them on, and the boat began to turn around in the water, like a sluggish top. Already they had lost sight of the other channel. The factory receded until only its smokestacks, fumes a mere trickle now, were visible. The current grew stronger, pulling them inexorably towards some unseen goal. The boat steadied finally into a slow turning pattern, and Chryse moved to kneel beside Sanjay. “Are you hurt?” She kissed him and reached to touch with tender solicitude his shoulder. He winced. “Just a bruise. What was that thing?” “I think it was an ogre.” Sanjay could not reply for a moment. On the banks, woods and fields and pastures dotted with sheep drifted past them. “I had to ask,” he said finally. He eyed the water and the bank. “I told you we should have taken up canoeing.” “Can we reach those trees with the boathook?” she asked. She balanced herself carefully at one side, but although it was only a small river, about thirty feet wide, the current carried them along briskly just out of pole’s reach of the shore.
