The Matron packed his clothes for him. She did not speak. She touched his possessions as though they were dirty. The headmaster called a ricksha for him and, without speaking, put Edward’s suitcase into it. Nobody said good-bye. The stars were like dew on Edward’s eyes. Inside his head pulsed the impact of the ricksha coolie’s feet on the ground. The street was narrow and crowded and quiet, at least there were only voices in it. Across the lighted booths and under the hanging bannered shop signs hurried the coolies at a half trot on their bare feet. Their burdens swung at either end of long poles; they had slung the great absurd shields which were their hats on their backs, the heat of the day being over. “Hai-ya ho, hoi-ya hai-ya, hai-ya ho, hoi-ya hai-ya....” Two withered women, with thin bare legs under their turned-up trousers, were beating a child’s garment with poles. Fierce treatment for so small a thing. But the devil of sickness was in the garment; it required fierce treatment. The lights glared on the scarlet and gold banners and on the gilt filigree woodwork that framed the doors of the shops. It seemed as if one heard noise more with one’s eyes than with one’s ears. The glare seemed to drown the voices and the barefoot tread of the crowds. Wherever one street crossed another, however, there was a great clamoring of coolies forging their own right of way through the tangle. Edward’s ricksha coolie said “Hao hao” when anyone crossed his path; the “hao” was always in time with the thumping of his running feet, as if jerked from his throat. Tall Sikh policemen pushed coolies roughly about. In the sight of the policemen the little crowd of almost naked beggar children running after Edward momentarily evaporated. Edward could now pay for his passage to Tientsin by sea and for a ticket from Tientsin to Peking. He could not pay for the new cool suit of clothes. Emily must take him as he was—hot or cold. He was the only passenger in the ship to Tientsin. It was carrying simply a great deal of indigo—and Edward. It was intent upon this duty and stopped at only one port. A gentle and pleasant measure of eternity passed over Edward. He lay on a chair alone upon the deck, flattened between the soft sea and sky. Flying fish rained upwards out of the sea. The flying fish made little scratches on the smooth sea. One evening the ship passed the mouth of the Yangtze River at sunset. An enormous plume of crimson cloud leaned away from the sea up the river. Thick polished plates of gold and crimson seemed laid upon the smooth waves of the sea to the west. The low hills at the mouth of the river were luminously purple....