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128 THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET
man in her room, she screamed, and would
have waked the whole neighbourhood. I
sent for the Hussian at once to go to her.
A fierce altercation took place between them,
and I heard the girl say she would rather
live on bread and water than submit. Then
the Russian told her that he had " done his
time " on bread and water in St. Paul's fortress,
St. Petersburg, and knew all about it ; but it
was now necessary to speak plainly, and he
told her why she had been brought to the
place, and that she was to do what was expected
of her. She began to scream horribly.
Then I heard a crash of crockery, and a
call for police and* of murder and the next
moment all was still. When I went in I
found that he had strangled the girl, maddened
by her calling for the police. Young
ladies who come here," she added, "must not
call for the police ;
it is highly dangerous.
" A Chinese doctor gave a burial certifi-
cate. The '
pimp '
took her belongings and
fled to Siam, taking with him a nice, childlike
school-girl, wham he decoyed from the
roadway as she skipped home from school.
You can see," she went on, "how difficult
it is for us to do anything in this matter.
The chief thing is to keep quiet and out
of trouble, and not to thrust ourselves
on the gaze of the authorities. We must
always try to lie in the shade quietly, if
we wish to succeed. So, however much we
may wish to punish these brutes, we would
practically be cutting our own throats if we