Chapter 37 Summary

May-may's second attack is worse than the first. He finds that she eavesdropped on his conversation with the Chinese doctor and Gordon Chen and knows about the twenty thousand tael reward for the bark. May-may bought Dirk a beautiful Chinese girl, Yin-hsi, as a birthday present. Dirk tells her that people just don't buy men girls for birthday presents. May-may doesn't see why not and if Yin-hsi is away she will have to hang herself because of the loss of face. He says they will keep the girl and find her a good husband.

Culum arrives with a letter that was sent to Dirk. Dirk tells Culum that May-may has already lost the baby. The letter is from Skinner, who was waiting for Dirk's return before publishing the story on the rejection of the treaty, but a frigate arrived from England and Skinner...