On closer inspection the cameras on the MiniRover revealed a sea of wooden crates that had been spilled between the broken sections of the ship when she sank. Pitt's prediction was confirmed when the ROV soared over the debris field and honied in on a strange shape materializing out of the murk. They all stared astonished as a poignant artifact from the distant past slowly rose and met the camera lens. The walls of a large crate had burst open like petals of a rose, exposing a strange shape standing in eerie solitude.

"What is it?" queried Wilbanks.

"A bronze life-size horse and rider," Pitt muttered in awe. "I'm not enough of an expert, but it must be the sculpture of an ancient Chinese emperor from the Han dynasty."

"How old do you reckon it is?" asked Hall.

"Close to two thousand years."

The effect of the horse and rider standing proud on the bottom was so profound, they all gazed solemnly at its image on the screen for the next two minutes without speaking. To Julia it was as if she had been carried back in time. The horse's head was turned slightly in the direction of the MiniRover, its nostrils flared. The rider sat stiffly upright, his sightless eyes staring into nothingness.

"The treasure," whispered Julia. "It's everywhere."

"Steer toward the stern," Pitt said to Hall.

"I've got the tether at its maximum length now," Hall replied. "Ralph will have to move the boat."

Wilbanks nodded, measured the distance and direction on the computer, and moved the Divercity, dragging the Mini-Rover until it was sitting atop the detached stern section. Then Hall deftly steered the ROV past the ship's propellers, whose upper blades rose from the silt. The huge rudder was still set on a direct course ahead. The lettering across the stern could be distinctly seen to identify the vessel's home port as Shanghai. The story was the same—the bent and shredded hull plates, the disemboweled engines, the scattered art treasures.

Midnight came and went as the first humans to lay eyes on the Princess Dou Wan in fifty-two years studied the two broken hulks and their priceless cargo from every angle. When they finally decided that there was no more to see, Hall began reeling in the MiniRover.

No one tore his gaze away from the screen until long after the MiniRover ascended toward the surface and the Princess Dou Wan was lost to view in the black void. The ship was once again alone on the bottom of the lake, her only companion an unknown sailing ship that rested only a mile away. But the solitude was temporary. Soon men, ships and equipment would be probing her bones and removing the precious cargo she had carried so far across the world and jealously guarded through the years since she steamed from Shanghai.

The ill-fated voyage of the Princess Dou Wan had not ended, not quite yet. Her epilogue was still to be written,

HISTORIAN ZHU KWAN