Ah, I think modern readers must find this chapter especially exciting! Are you familiar with the trope of a car chase in films, where the "good guys" must rush to catch up with the "bad guys?" Chapter Ten has very much the same content, except Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson are chasing down their bad guys in a boat!
Doyle opens the chapter with Holmes and Watson enjoying a meal before they must do their work for the evening. They and their police fellow, Jones, set off to the wharf. Here, they get into a police boat that has been disguised by removing its identifying green lamp. Already, we can sense the seriousness of what is about to occur.
En route to their destination, Holmes explains why they are headed there. He knows that the man they are after uses a nearby dock, and Holmes has guessed that it is most likely Jacobson's Yard. Holmes also explains that the man they are looking for has acquired a boat from a local drunkard. While they are waiting in the dark just near the docks of Jacobson's Yard, the very boat they are waiting for zips behind them!
The Aurora is fast, but so is the police boat Holmes and Watson are in! On both boats, men are furiously shoveling coal into the steam-engines. As the police boat closes in on the Aurora, Dr. Watson fires at one of the men they are chasing and he falls overboard. Holmes, Watson, and their police fellows are able to rope the boats together and board the Aurora.
The sense of excitement and tension drawn from two well-matched means of transport is certainly nothing new, and it was just as powerful to Doyle's readers in 1890 as it is to us watching a car chase today!
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