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.