It was not to sleep that Emily returned when she carried the water to Elsie of Shanghai and, crouching in the cramped space, took the woman's scorching head in her lap. Elsie was murmuring in a semi-coma, sometimes in English, but more often in Chinese. Occidental though she was, this woman's long, hard years in the gateways of the Far East had breathed in her the Orient's spirit of fatalism. The stoicism of the children of the sunset lands was hers; the immobility of feature which marks them was sealed in her striking, irregular features. Her manner of speech and expression were theirs.  
"I wonder if they will burn me in hell this way," she gasped as Emily put the cup to her avid lips.
 
"No, no, you mustn't have such thoughts," Emily whispered.
 
Elsie was in pain. The difficulty with which she breathed told that. Yet only now and then did a hardly audible moan escape her lips.
 
"He said I must be brave—that I was brave—that I must be patient," and Emily Granville knew that this strange woman was thinking of what Lavelle had said to them in the morning. "Did you ask him—the captain—for this water?" she asked after a seemingly very long time.
 
"No," Emily told her with a feeling of guilt. "He made me bring it to you. He said it would be all right."
 
"God, what a white man—what a white man! Oh, I know men, my dear child," and Emily imagined that a sneer was upon her lips. "I know them as the Canton money lenders know their gold." She spoke with a fierce tenseness. "I've trafficked in them—traded in them—as they trade in guns—and opium at Macao." Her breath stopped in a quick gasp. Emily pressed another sup of water between her lips.
 
"Are you afraid of death, my dear?" Elsie whispered.
 
"I—I don't know——But you mustn't think these terrible thoughts," and yet as she spoke Emily Granville wondered at the calmness which possessed her. A different person than the Emily Granville she had known for twenty-four years seemed to be speaking and thinking in these wild and strange surroundings.
 
"I will not get better—I know," said the Shanghai woman presently. "It is pneumonia again—the women of the lighted houses cannot stand the open." She sat up quickly, clutching at her breasts. "I am like fire—and lead—in here. Oh, God, it is so hard to breathe!"
 
"Can't I think of something to do for you?"
 
"Only hold me—just this way," and she sank in Emily's lap again. "I saw the way you held him. You are—very kind. You were made for—for the mother of men—strong men—like my—my captain out there. No; do not draw away from me. You would trust him if you could have seen him—him and that Chang—that night in Shanghai. There was a place for everybody—everybody—but the women—the toys from behind the green jalousies. Ask Chang—he—he will tell you. They picked us out—of the dark river. It's very dark now, isn't it? Very dark——" Her whisper trailed away in a low moan. Emily tried to make her take a drink of water, but she refused it. "Will you say, 'Our—Our Father'"—and Emily repeated the Lord's Prayer very slowly and sensed that the other woman's lips were following the words dumbly. "Ask him—my captain—please if he—will not speak to me," Elsie murmured after a long silence.
 
Emily heard a movement aft and, pushing back the flap of the rug, saw Chang relieving Lavelle at the helm. The dawn was just pinking the eastern sky.
 
Lavelle saw Emily's hand beckoning and he crept forward. Elsie held out a hand to him and he took it. Her pulse flashed to him a history of what she was suffering. A glance at her face revealed to him the touch of death upon it.
 
"I'm going away—going home," Elsie whispered. "Will you hold——The dawn!"
 
Lavelle understood her glance upward and pushed away the rug. He got behind her and lifted her into a sitting posture. She still clung to his hand.
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