It was Nai's baby boy that cried, and it died in its mother's arms that night. She yielded it sorrowfully to those who took away the dead, and returned wearily to her husband's couch to keep the flies off him with a palm branch. Nai herself had been too much occupied with her baby to go with the others across the island after the fight, and she had not developed the disease. The baby had taken it, however, and Nai had nursed him and his father indefatigably, and now the boy was gone just as his father turned the corner, and the little mother was broken-hearted. They comforted her by telling her that Ha'o would live, and she fanned away wearily to the tune of her sobs that would not be kept in. Jean, as she flitted noiselessly to and fro, with cold water for this one and medicine for that, and hopeful words for all, and special ones for Nai, thought now and again of the mighty change her marriage had wrought in her life, but never once regretted what she had done and all she had left. And more than once the dreadful thought came upon her--"Supposing Ken were to take the sickness and die and leave me alone!" Ah, then she felt as though her world would fall to pieces, and she prayed, as she had never prayed in her life before, that he might be spared, or that they might go together. The one thing that wrought itself indelibly into all their memories was the contrast between their hospital work and its setting. Inside the long palm-thatched sheds--the moans and murmurs and restless movements of the sufferers; the ever-fluttering fans which kept off the plague of insects, and alleviated to some extent the pungency of the atmosphere; the irresistible depression induced by the close presence of insidious, crawling death. And outside--the implacable glare of the sunshine; the smooth, slow-heaving, blue mirror of the lagoon; the metronomic roar and long white flashes of the surge on the reef; the palms swinging slowly and solemnly with a sound like the patter of falling rain; and up above, the pale blue sky. Death in its most repulsive form, set in a picture of surpassing beauty, which yet had in it something of pitilessness from the very sharpness of the contrast. These things they never forgot. They held no regular services at these times, for some were always on duty. But there was much prayer among them, and when the watches changed, the one in charge, Blair, Evans, or Cathie, would give his band of helpers a few brave words to carry with them--grateful thanks for perils past, hopeful prayers for safety in the hours to come. For they never knew but what the evil seeds might even then be working in any one of them, and they went with fear in their hearts though their faith and hope were strong, and their faces were tuned to quietness.