Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/217

 the hall. "And look sharp, in case they've posted a guard."

But there was no sound, no movement, as they stumbled on through weed-grovm streets, in the shadow of silent houses, over carven stone bridges that spanned only a trickle of slimy water, and out at last through the city-gate to the reeds of the river-bank. There they stopped, breathless, to look back at the ghost city, black beneath the stars.

"Will you ever forget the look in his eyes?" Alan breathed.

"Not for a while," Mark said. "The sooner we get out of China, the better." That, however, was quite another story—getting out of China. Time enough for that when they had escaped this sinister city. But there lay the boat, still and untenanted, pulled up into the sedge. The boys got the precious box safely on board, and then, leaping into the ooze, pulled and pushed and struggled till the boat swung out, slithering through muddy reeds, and floated clear. They scrambled aboard, and with mighty thrusts poled her out into the rippled water and turned her into the