another good haul shall we have; and what is more we shall be swallowed
up in the sea, if we allow any more children to be taken to the house
of the foreign God."

"Be still, be still, old Loha," answered Lihoa. "You don't know what
you are taking about. I myself have been to the great white house of
the foreign women in Hongkong. There they do naught but good, and
nobody ever hears of your doing anything good from morning till night.
Our children are better taken care of there than here in our poor old
huts. If our women only loved their babes as much as these white-faced
women do! Be still. Your drivelling talk about stewing up their eyes
and hearts to make drinks is all a foolish lie. Did we not open one of
the graves of one of the children to see if the eyes and hearts were
there? And they were. A nephew of mine, the son of my sister Luli,
who was exposed twelve years ago by his mother, because her husband was
drowned and she had no means of bringing him up, was taken to the great
house and now he is a splendid big boy. From there they sent him to
the school, and he can speak and write the Chinese language and also
that of the West. Some day I shall go and get him and bring him back
to live with our family.--Ah! here we stand and gossip like old women,
while the sun is sinking. It is time to take the fish and the oysters
to the market. Whose turn is it to go?"

Four men stepped forward and raised the wooden yoke having attached to
it buckets of oysters and baskets of fish. The sack containing the
crabs Lihoa himself swung over his shoulder, and they started at a
quick pace up the hill over which the path to Victoria lay. The women
as they turned to go with the children to the huts to prepare the
evening meal bade them farewell and called out, "A fortunate sale!"