After supper, while enjoying a pipe before turning in, he went forward
and stood behind the powerful electric lamp fitted in the bows to
illumine the narrow water-lane which joins East and West. The broad
shaft of light lent a solemn beauty to the bleak wastes on either hand.
In front, the canal's silvery riband shimmered in magic life. Its
nearer ripples formed a glittering corsage for the ship's tapered stem,
and merged into a witches' way of blackness beyond. The red signal of a
distant _gare_, or station, or the white gleam of an approaching
vessel's masthead light, shone from the void like low-pitched stars.
Overhead the sky was of deepest blue, its stupendous arch studded with
stars of extraordinary radiance, while low on the west could be seen
the paler sheen of departing day. At times his wondering eyes fell on
some Arab encampment on the neighboring bank, where shrouded figures
sat round a fire, and ghostly camels in the background raised ungainly
heads and gazed at the ever-mysterious sight of the moving ship.
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