Hawaii

Nyuk Tsin and Mun Ki hide out in the hills and are sheltered by their Hawaiian friends Kimo and Apikela. When the law finally catches up to them, they are transported to the leper colony on Molokai, where even the basic necessities of life aren’t provided by the government. “In truth, the lepers had been thrown ashore with nothing except the sentence of certain death, and what they did until they died, no man cared” (770).

The island of Molokai is ruled by a particularly unsavory character named Big Saul. He insists that the Chinese must live separately from the rest of the lepers. Women who still don’t show advanced stages of the disease are repeatedly raped by Big Saul and his cronies, all of whom are disfigured in the advanced stages of leprosy. Nyuk Tsin is temporarily safe because she is once again pregnant. After her fifth son is born, she swims out to one of the infrequent supply boats and insists that the sailors must take the child back to Honolulu.

Shortly after this, the men on the island begin to show a sexual interest in Nyuk Tsin, but she and Mun Ki are prepared for such a threat. One night, Big Saul and two other men come to rape Nyuk Tsin, but they are attacked with sharpened stakes by the Chinese. Big Saul is mortally wounded and another man is blinded in one eye. After Big Saul dies, the rest of the colony approves of his demise and welcomes the Chinese into their midst. A few brave people insist on creating law and order for the island’s inhabitants. They begin to establish rules and some rudimentary community services.

Over time, Nyuk Tsin is able to scavenge enough materials to build a real house. By this time, her husband is near death. He makes her promise to educate the boys and send money back to his official wife in China. After Mun Ki’s death, Nyuk Tsin remains to nurse many of the afflicted. Six years later, her service is rewarded, and she is allowed to return to the island. She immediately reunites with her Hawaiian friends and the four boys, who scarcely remember her now, but she has trouble finding any trace of her fifth son. Undaunted, she begins to cultivate the land that was given to her by Dr. Whipple, now deceased.

By now, Whip Hoxworth has returned from seven years at sea. Whip’s family isn’t happy to see him. His womanizing has created a scandal, and his wild behavior is an embarrassment to the family business. Instead, he is given 4,000 acres to do with as he pleases. The land has no water source, and Whip is perplexed until he meets up with an artesian well expert named Overpeck, who strikes water on Whip’s property. The land will now be worth millions as a pineapple plantation.

Around the same time, Nyuk Tsin and her Hawaiian friends decide to build a house on the edge of her property. She has found her missing son; he was adopted by the governor of Honolulu. Even though Nyuk Tsin insists that the boy belongs to her, the Hawaiians persuade her to leave him where he is after the governor grants a few concessions. The boy will be told about his real family and will be expected to participate in the semi-annual ritual of sending money to his official mother in China. The governor will also give Nyuk Tsin a rich plot of farmland. Her only other ambition is to get her boys educated. Her other four sons are in school, and Nyuk Tsin intends to send the smartest one to a first-class college on the mainland.