She supposed it was inevitable that, in due time, these men would take 
those liberties with her that have ever been claimed as angary by irregular 
fighting men, who have willfully severed themselves from the softening feminine 
influence of civilized society, with those women who have had the misfortune to 
become their captives. To make this prospect less attractive, she took the 
desperate measure of allowing her person to become tainted with the noisome 
issue of her natural internal processes. But most of the Fists were too busy, 
and when some of the grungy foot-soldier types arrived, Madame Ping's girls 
were eager to make themselves useful in this regard. Nell reflected that a 
bunch of soldiers who found themselves billeted in a bawdy-house would
naturally arrive with certain expectations, and that the inmates would be 
unwise to disappoint them.