noon
The tranquil backwater had overpowered him for a time ; but , again awake , he would strike out strongly ... with Sidsall . Endless doubt and hope fluctuated within him . Voices rose from the Napier garden , and from a tree sounded the whirring of the first locust he had noticed that summer . On a noon following he saw the passage of the three or four carriages that constituted the funeral cortège of Taou Yuen 's entirely private interment . She would be buried of course by Christian service : here were none of the elaborate Confucian rites and ceremonial ; yet -- from what Taou Yuen had occasionally indicated -- Confucius , Lao-tze , the Buddha , were all more alike than different ; they all vainly preached humility , purity , the subjugation of the flesh . He stopped later in the Charter Street cemetery and found her grave , the headstone marked : TAOU YUEN A MANCHURIAN LADY THE WIFE OF GERRIT AMMIDON , ESQ. and the dates . He saw , naturally , but little of the Ammidons -- a glimpse of Rhoda in the carriage and William on Charter Street ; the _ Nautilus _ , ready for sea , continued in her berth at Phillips ' Wharf .