CHAPTER IX
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 difficul
