d the trouble. "We are veree oblige'," said her mother;
"we'll continue on the _Votarezz_."

"Goody!" murmured the daughter to old Joy, to Hugh, and to the captain
as he left the group. "Goody!"

"Mother!" protested the twins, "you must not!"

"Oh-h! you?" she radiantly inquired, "you rather go ashore, you, eh?
Veree well. Doubdlezz the captain be please' to put you." Her smile grew
stately as Ramsey laughed. She turned to the grandfather. "Never in my
life I di'n' ran away from sicknezz. I billieve anybody can't die till
his time come'. When his time come' he'll die. My 'usband he billieve
that, too."

"Don't the Germans come from Germany?" asked Ramsey, but no one seemed
able to tell her.

"And also," pursued the lady, "I billieve tha'z a cowardly--to run away
from those sick." She looked around for the twins but they were
conferring aside. "And also I billieve, me--like they say--to get
scare'--tha'z the _sure_ way to catch that kind of sicknezz. 'Tis by
that it pazz into the syztem! My 'usband he tell me that. He's veree
acquaint' with medicine, my 'usband, yes! And----"

"Is Germany in Asia?" Ramsey drawled, but nobody seemed to know
anything.

"And I billieve," persisted madame, "to continue on the boat, tha'z also
the mo' safe. Because if we leave the boat, where we'll find one doctor
for _that_ maladee-e? An' if we _find_ one doctor, who's goin' nurse us
in that maladee?"

"Is Asia--?" tried Ramsey again, but hushed with a strange thrill as her
ear caught, remotely beneath her, a faint sawing and hammering.

"Mo' better, I billieve," continued her mother, "we continue on the boat
and ourselve' nurse those sick. When the Mother of God see' that she'll
maybe privent from coming our time to die."

"If Germany--" whined Ramsey, but huddled down in her seat as the sawing
and hammering came again----

"What, my chile?"

Light at last! She instantly sat up: "Why do they call it the Asiatic
cholera if--?" She stopped short. From the open deck far below rose an
angry cry:

"Stop that fool! Stop her!"

Ramsey darted so recklessly to the low front guard that Hugh darted also
and held her arm as she bent over, while close upon the cry came a
woman's long, unmistakable wail for her dead. Twice it filled the air,
then melted out over the gliding waters and into the night, above the
regardless undertones of the boat's majestic progress. Grandfather,
nurse, mother, brothers pressed after the girl and Hugh. Cl