noon
Again she looked up at the secretary ; but far from seeing any trace of scheme or plot in his enigmatical countenance , she found him to be considering the situation with the same equanimity with which he would have recorded the calcium content of a soil sample . As for Professor and Madame Oshima , they seemed equally unruffled about the proposed journey , and not at all inclined to elucidate the mystery . Experience had taught the younger woman that when information was not offered it was unwise to ask questions , so when the Professor busied himself with much ransacking of his pamphlets and papers and his wife became equally occupied with overhauling the family wardrobe and getting the children off to their grandmother 's , Ethel accepted unquestionably the statement that she would be limited to twenty kilograms of clothing and ten kilograms of other personal effects , and lent assistance as best she could to the enterprise in hand . On the third day the little party , with their light luggage boarded a train for Hakodate , at which point they arrived at noon . Hurrying along the docks among others burdened like themselves , they came to a great low-lying , turtle-topped warship ; and , passing down a gangway , entered the brilliantly lighted interior . The constant flood of new passengers came , not in mixed and motley groups , as the ordinary crowd of passengers , but by two , male and female , as the unclean beasts into the ark . And they were all young in years and athletic in frame -- the very cream and flower of the race .