From the commanding eminence where the sightseers stood the spectacle was awe-inspiring; for though the whole vast work lay spread out beneath them in what looked like a hopeless confusion, yet as their eyes followed it a great and magic system became manifest.  The whole organism seemed animate with some slow, intricate intelligence.  The metal skips careening across those dizzy heights regulated their courses to a hand’s-breadth, deposited their burdens carefully, then hurried back for more; the shuttle trains that dodged about so feverishly, untended and unguided, performed each some vital function.  The great conglomerate body was dead, yet it pulsated with a life of its own.  Its effect of being governed by a single indwelling mind of superhuman capacity was overpowering.

Kirk heard Mrs. Cortlandt explaining:  “The ships will steam up from the sea through the dredged channel you see over yonder, then they will be raised to the level of the lake.”

“What lake?”

“That valley”—­she indicated the tropical plain between the hills, wherein floating dredges were at work—­“will be an inland sea.  Those forests will be under water.”

“Where is the Gatun dam I’ve heard so much about?”

She pointed out a low, broad ridge or hog-back linking the hills together.

“That is it.  It doesn’t look much like a dam, does it?  But it is all hand-made.  Those are rock trains out there, from Culebra.”

“Oh, now I understand.  Gee whiz, but this job is a whopper!  Say, this is great!” Mrs. Cortlandt smiled.  “It does wake up your patriotism, doesn’t it?  I’m glad to have a hand in building it.”

“Are you helping to dig this canal?” Anthony regarded the woman curiously.  She seemed very cool and well-dressed and independent for one engaged in actual work.

“Of course!  Even though I don’t happen to run a steam-shovel.”

“Will they really finish it?  Won’t something happen?”

“It is already dug.  The rest is merely a matter of excavation and concrete.  The engineering difficulties have all been solved, and the big human machine has been built up.  What is more important, the country is livable at last.  Over at Ancon Hospital there is a quiet, hard-working medical man who has made this thing possible.  When the two oceans are joined together, and the job is finished, his will be the name most highly honored.”

“It must be nice to do something worth while,” Anthony mused, vaguely.

“To do anything,” his companion observed, with a shade of meaning; then:  “It is amusing to look back on the old Spanish statement that it would be impious to unite two oceans which the Creator of the world had separated.”

Noting that the sun was setting beyond the distant jungles and the canon at his feet was filling with shadows, Kirk remarked, “It must be nearly time they quit work.”

“This work doesn’t stop.  When it grows dark the whole place is lit by electricity, and the concrete continues to pour in just the same.  It is wonderful then—­like the mouth of a volcano.  Batteries of search-lights play upon the men; the whole sky is like a furnace.  You can see it for miles.  Now I think we had better go back to the car.”