Shanghai

Оглавление

Christopher New. Shanghai

IMPRINT

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EPILOGUE

Отрывок из книги

IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE CHANGE in the ship's motion that woke him, the roll of the open sea giving way to calm of the estuary. Propping himself up on his elbow, Denton looked out of the port-hole, through which the scuttle was channelling warm, moist air onto his face. It was dawn. He could see a pink flush in the sky, and across the smooth, still-dark, oily water he could make out the dim shape of land, a low, smudged bar of earth darker and more solid than the sea.

The other passengers in the crowded cabin were still snoring and sighing in their sleep. Dressing quickly and stealthily to avoid waking them, he made his way up to the lower deck. The sun had risen over the horizon already when he reached it, and the banks of the river, clear and distinct now, were closing in on the ship. The pilot was just climbing aboard; his launch, pouring black smoke from its sooty grey funnel, was curling away to a cluster of tumbledown grey stone buildings on the bank. The water was a yellowish muddy colour, its opaque surface glittering under the long slanting rays of the sun.

.....

'Hot?' Mason gave a short, ill-tempered laugh. 'That's not the trouble. It's the humidity that's killing.' He turned away to shout something at the man carrying Denton's trunk.

Outside the gate they were surrounded by an insistent mob of rickshaw coolies, all calling out and beckoning, lowering the shafts of their rickshaws invitingly so that the two Englishmen almost tripped over them. Mason kicked out sullenly at several, before he chose one. 'Here, this'll do. Hop in. The trunk can go in the one behind. Suppose you've seen these things before, Hong Kong and so on?'

.....