the shrill wail of the great whistle stirred marsh from his paralysis , and he looked up and saw the far-off lights of the descending boat and the fires belching from the tops of her tall chimneys , and the near-black sky that loomed above it , and the lightning dim in the distance lighting up the clouds from within , and the river , the river black and endless , the river that was his home and his trade and his friend and his worst enemy and fickle , brutal , loving consort to his ladies .