Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/266



H, glory!— Think of it, think of it!" Alan sighed; not of the feast this time, for that was long past, but of miracles in general.

For he and Mark—and the fortune of the Ingrams—were aboard a boat that puffed and inched its way into the canal under the young stars. They sat up late, watching the slow progress along the ancient waterway, catching through the darkness dim gleams of single-arched bridges spanning the water with high-flung, graceful curves; mulberry orchards sighing in the night-wind; shrines half seen; villages passed in mantling purple gloom. There was a compelling mystery about the canal, so magnificent even in its decay, the triumph of its crumbling masonry half-shrouded by the night.

And they were going to Shanghai—to 244