The downstream sump of Sluice-Gate Nine had never been so quiet.
Where twelve hours ago a violent, sixty-knot jet of black salt water had been tearing through the guide-tracks, there was now only a placid pool of clear, dark water fourteen arm-lengths deep. The eight-foot dark rock gate stood like a cliff of polished black glass against the northern archway, its green veins glistening under the yellow lantern light. Along the bottom margin of the stone. There, the bronze water-stops met the pale limestone bedrock, not a single trickle of moisture escaped. The seal was total, held tight by the nine-hundred-ton weight of the slab and the four sea-weights of water-pressure head behind it.
Qiao Ming stood on the downstream sounding platform, five feet above the surface of the pool.
He had removed his boots and rolled his hemp trousers to the knee. His bare feet gripped the damp, ribbed pale limestone flags, relishing the cold, clean texture of stone that had been scrubbed free of foreign mud. His hands, though still bound with strips of linen to protect the blistered palms, were steady, moving with the unrushed care of a man who had completed his watch.
He held the eight-sided lead line-weight in his left hand. The plumb was eight pounds of soft, battered lead, freshly packed with cold sheep fat from his horn box.
