“Look here; she’s sick already. Better send one of those ayah women, or whatever you call ‘em, over, and have her put to bed right away.”

They undressed her, submissive as a little child, and put her into the berth of a little stateroom, which seemed to Yuki, who had never in her life before been on board a vessel of any sort, save the tiny craft about the rivers at her home, like a tiny cage or vault, wherein she, exhausted and weary, had been put to die.

She lay there with the surging bustle of the ship’s noises overhead and the tremulous growl of the waters beneath the ship droning in her ears like the melancholy ringing of a dying curfew-bell at twilight.

The ayah reported to the manager’s wife, an ex-comic-opera prima donna, that she was resting and sleeping; but when that impetuous, big-hearted woman peeped in on her, she found Yuki’s eyes wide open. She whirled into the small stateroom, almost filling it with her large person, and sat down beside the poor little weary girl and looked at her with friendly and approving eyes.

“You are like a pretty picture on a fan,” she said; “the prettiest Japanese girl I’ve seen. I think we’ll be fine friends, don’t you?”

Yuki could only assent with a weary little nod of her head. She closed her eyes.

“You are not so dreadfully sick, are you?” said the American. “I thought maybe we could have a nice little gossip together. You see, my husband’s the boss of this whole outfit that we’ve got along with us, and I don’t know that there’s one of the whole lot I’ve ever cared to associate with before. You’re different. Now, ain’t I good to speak out just what’s on my mind, eh?”

“I ought to thang you,” said Yuki, feebly, “but I am too weary to be perlite.”

“Then you shall be left alone, you child, you,” said the other; then she kissed Yuki lightly, and went out of the door.

But after she had gone Yuki’s passivity left her. She sat up quivering, and then with nervous quickness she began to dress herself. She could not open the door of the stateroom. She was unused to strange doors that required the pushing of springs and bolts. She had lived in a land where bolts and locks were almost unknown, where a shoji fell apart at a touch of a hand. Now she pushed hard against the door, but, as she had not turned the handle, it refused to move. A terror possessed her that they had locked her in this tiny, awful cell, to which penetrated no light save that which filtered through a small porthole against which the waters beat and beat.