It filled her with indefinable fear.

Until now none of her prayers had ever been answered.

Why should God give particular attention to such a prayer, when He had ignored all others?
Certainly there was a trap somewhere.
So, while she watched, distressed and bewildered by her tumbling thoughts, the packet, Canton bound, ruffled the placid waters of the Pearl River.

In one of the cabins a man sat on the edge of his narrow bunk.

In his muscular pudgy hand was a photograph, frayed at the corners, soiled from the contact of many hands: the portrait of a youth of eighteen.
The man was thick set, with a bright roving eye.