Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/168

 alley, and found himself, with the sky just graying into morning, on the edge of a scummy waterway where sampans were moored and their inhabitants beginning to wake and peer out. He got his bearings from the spreading eastern light, decided which must be downstream, and began walking doggedly along the slippery and devious runways that followed the course of the creek. He was extremely dirty by now, hatless and pallid, and he did not attract so much attention or suspicion as a neatly clad foreigner.

There were signs now that the creek was widening; then the Chinese city wall loomed across the yellow sky, and Mark followed it till he found a carved, crumbling gate. Once through this, he knew that walking straight on toward the sun would bring him to the settlements. And at last he found himself, surprisingly, on Nanking Road, and then the British bund opened majestically before him, with the Public Garden, all roses and chrysanthemums and tall swaying trees. A little municipal street-sweeper, in his red jacket and blue trousers, was busily clearing the road with his reed broom, and he stared in surprise at Mark. No