A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

Chapter Seven.

Saved by a Hairbreadth.

The furious fusillade directed against the fort at once slackened, after the explosion of that shell amongst the guns; while the fire from the fort redoubled, the rounds of solid shot, grape, chain, and shrapnel, with withering volleys of small-arm fire, sweeping through the rebel ranks like hail, and playing awful havoc among the closely-packed masses of men only partially concealed by the jungle.But the besiegers, as Frobisher had already had an opportunity of observing, were not easily to be discouraged, and after the first shock of surprise had subsided they quickly pulled themselves together again.

Another gun’s crew came leaping out from the cover of the jungle and gathered round the wrecked field-piece; pieces of timber, empty ammunition-boxes, and even small branches of trees were secured and placed alongside the gun; and several more men seized the piece and lifted it up until it was partly supported upon its remaining uninjured wheel.The pile of material which had been collected was then built solidly up in place of the wrecked wheel, and the fresh gunners began to serve the weapon as coolly as though its original crew had not been blown into eternity a few minutes previously.There could be no doubt that these Korean rebels were showing themselves to be a remarkably brave and efficient body of men.

While the wrecked gun was once more being made serviceable, the Englishman observed that two of the other guns were being slewed round until their muzzles pointed seaward, and he at once surmised that this must be the direction from which that devastating shell had come.But crane his neck as he might, although he could see a portion of the sheet of water forming Prince Jerome Bay, he could not see the whole of it.The entrance was clear, however, and it was therefore obvious that the vessel from which the shot had been fired—for vessel it must be—had contrived to enter the bay unobserved, and must now be cruising about somewhere near the south shore.

Frobisher was very anxious to obtain a sight of her, for he greatly desired to get some idea of what her nationality might be.She might belong to any of the fleets of the various Powers that maintained squadrons in Chinese waters at that time; or she might be either a Chinese or a Japanese war-vessel.Any man-of-war would consider herself at liberty to interfere, in the event of a battle taking place on Korean soil, if only for the protection of the foreign inhabitants, whose lives might be imperilled in consequence of the hostilities; but Frobisher could not help thinking that the captain of the man-of-war was taking matters with rather a high hand in deliberately firing on one of the parties concerned, without first offering that party the opportunity to come to a peaceful arrangement.Such high-handed action did not appear like that of a European naval officer, and therefore the most obvious conclusion was that the vessel must be either Chinese or Japanese.

Even as Frobisher looked, however, the question answered itself, for moving slowly into his field of vision there appeared the bow of a cruiser, quite close inshore; and as she gradually revealed her whole length, her guns flashing continuously meanwhile, the Englishman saw that the Dragon ensign was flying from her peak, and that she was therefore a Chinese man-of-war.China, then, had at length decided to take a hand in the game, and her efforts were to be directed against the rebels.Knowing as he did the terms of the Tien-tsin convention of 1884 between China and Japan, the words “international complications” at once suggested themselves to Frobisher’s mind, and, despite the awkwardness of his own position, he could not help rubbing his hands gleefully.Matters were rapidly developing; and if he could but escape from his present unpleasant predicament there might be an excellent chance for him to see active service again, either in the Chinese or the Japanese Navy—he cared very little which—for that was what things would evidently come to, sooner or later.Japan was herself too much interested in Korea to permit China to play out her own game there alone.

Frobisher had little leisure, however, for the contemplation of possible diplomatic action on the part of the Chinese or Japanese, for he had now other things to engage his attention.To his astonishment, as he watched, he saw that the ship which had just steamed into view was not alone; she was followed, close astern, by another cruiser of her own size and class, also firing heavily with her broadside batteries, and also flying the Chinese flag.A third and fourth vessel—gunboats these—followed in her wake; and, bringing up the rear, there were three hired transports which appeared to be crowded with men.

So this was no chance appearance of a single cruiser at a critical moment; it was evidently part of a preconcerted scheme—some arrangement previously made between Korea and China whereby the latter country was to lend her assistance for the crushing of the rebellion, a task which the Korean Government had apparently decided to be beyond its capabilities.

The Chinese squadron had been steaming exceedingly slowly when it had first come into view, and Frobisher could now see, from the flash of white water under the ships’ sterns, that their engines were being sent astern; and a few seconds later the entire fleet came to an anchor, their cables flying out through the hawse-pipes with a roar which was plainly audible at the fort.The four men-of-war anchored stem and stern, broadside-on to the shore, while the three transports took up their berths about half a mile farther seaward, the ships themselves being screened from the rebel fire by the steel hulls of the men-of-war.

Fully recovered now from their first surprise, the rebels resumed their cannonade most pluckily, two of the field-pieces being directed against the fleet, while the remaining four retained their original position, and poured a well-directed and concentrated fire on the fort.It was apparently the intention of the rebel commander to reduce and take possession of the fort, if he could, before the Chinese troops should be enabled to effect a landing, so that he might have some shelter behind which to hold out until he could summon more rebel troops to his aid.

But the commandant of the garrison had evidently no intention of letting the fort slip through his fingers, now that assistance was so close at hand; and from what Frobisher had already seen of him, he felt sure that his visitor of yesterday was the exact type of man who would blow the building into the air, with himself and all that it contained, rather than surrender, even to an overwhelming force.The guns from the battlements crashed out anew, and although their fire was not nearly so accurate as that from the rebel pieces, yet, in the long run, weight of metal was bound to tell; and, while the shot was solid and had not therefore the devastating effect of the percussion shell fired from the war-ships, it began to be apparent that some of them at least were getting home, and that their effect was already becoming very galling to the rebels.The latter, now harassed almost beyond endurance by the combined fire of the fort and the ships, brought up, about midday, a company of sharpshooters armed with the latest breech-loaders, which they had somehow managed to secure; and by means of well-directed volleys, contrived to keep the men of the fort from their guns to such an extent that the fire from that building dwindled almost to nothing, so that one more of the rebel guns was released to be trained on the anchored cruisers, when the effect of the increased cannonade soon became apparent in that direction also.

Now and again Frobisher saw flashes of fire leap up on board the men-of-war, for it appeared that the rebels were also possessed of a few percussion shells; and he further observed that the ten-inch gun in the bow turret of the foremost cruiser had been put out of action entirely, thus giving a good deal of relief to the men who had been exposed to its fire.The weapon had been struck full upon the muzzle at the precise moment when a shell was leaving it, and the combined explosion had torn a length of about four feet off the end of the gun, and had lifted it clean out of its bearings, so that it now pointed skyward, its under side resting on the edge of the turret and threatening to crash down on deck outside at any moment.The ruddy orange tint of the light and the length of the shadows told that the sun was near his setting, yet up to this time no effort had been made to land any of the men from the transports.But now Frobisher observed that boats were being lowered from the steamers, and that soldiers were beginning to clamber down into them, while the war-ships redoubled their fire, with the evident purpose of putting the rebel guns out of action, and so making it the easier for the troops to effect a landing.

And now at length that terrible and continuous cannonade began to have its effect, especially as the garrison of the fort had begun to imitate the rebel tactics and were now harassing the foe with rifle fire.The garrison, being sheltered by the parapet of the battlements, were able to fire at leisure and without much danger to themselves; so that, although they were not such good marksmen as their opponents, the mere weight of their fire eventually began to tell upon the unfortunate men in the open, who had nothing but the fringe of jungle to protect them.

The field-piece which had previously been put out of action was now struck a second time by a fragment of flying shell, and collapsed once more on to the sand; and so fierce was the rifle and shell fire that was now being directed upon the little band of gunners that, although they made the most valiant and desperate efforts to repair the damage, they were driven away from the spot time after time, and were at last compelled to abandon their efforts.Then a second field-piece was blown completely off its carriage by one of the solid shot from the fort, and a few seconds afterwards a third gun was dismounted and its crew shattered to pieces by a shell from one of the Chinese gunboats.

Stubbornly, however, the rebels still clung to their position, and, again swinging round the two pieces with which they had been playing on the ships, they resumed the bombardment of the fort, in the hope of battering in a breach through which the place might be carried by storm, or compelling its surrender before the approaching reinforcements could arrive from the fleet.

So absorbed was Frobisher in the little drama that was being enacted before his eyes that, even when the muzzles of the rebel guns were trained on what appeared to be the very window out of which he was peeping, the idea never once occurred to him that he was in a position of considerable danger, and that he would be well advised to climb down; so that it was not until he saw the flashes of flame leap from the pieces as they were all fired simultaneously that he realised the full extent of his temerity.

Then, even as he flung himself backward off the support on which he was standing, there came a terrific concussion, followed by a rumbling roar as an avalanche of stone went crashing to the ground below; while the very building itself, massive as it was, quaked as though the whole edifice were on the point of crumbling to pieces.Frobisher, dazed and half-stunned by the tremendous shock, and nearly blinded by the shower of dust and mortar that came pouring in upon him, found himself lying on his back on the floor, surrounded by a pile of instruments and machines, blocks of stone, and other débris, until it seemed nothing short of a miracle that he had not been crushed to pieces.

As it chanced, however, he had not received so much as a scratch, and found, as he picked himself up, that nothing worse had befallen him than the acquisition of sundry fresh bruises.And as he was already a mass of contusions from head to foot, he felt that one or two more made very little difference.

He was just about to climb up again to his point of vantage—for he was intensely interested in learning the outcome of this stubborn little fight by the sea-shore—when he happened to glance upward in order to ascertain whether there were any more loose blocks of stone likely to be dislodged and fall on him.As he did so he caught sight of another ray of daylight shining into the gloom of his prison.Upon investigation he saw that the last three shots from the rebel guns must have been so well aimed as to have struck practically the same spot, for, sure enough, there was a ragged hole in the wall, slightly above the window and a little to the left of it, apparently at the junction of the ceiling of his cell and the floor of the chamber above, just big enough for him to thrust his head through.Also, what was more to the point, it was evident that very little effort would be needed to pull down more of the shattered masonry, and so enlarge the hole sufficiently to enable him to crawl through.

But, he decided, it would be sheer suicide for him to attempt to escape at this particular juncture.The mere appearance of his head through the hole would be enough to attract the entire fire of the rebels, since they would naturally take him for one of the garrison; and there was also the very probable chance of his being seen by the riflemen on the battlements, who would be able to pick him off with the utmost ease as he climbed out.No; it would be necessary to delay the attempt until after dark, trusting that meanwhile everybody in general, and the Governor in particular, would be much too busy to pay him a visit of investigation and inspect the damage done.

He therefore placed himself at the window once more, and soon saw that, even during the short interval of his absence, matters had altered considerably.Another rebel gun had been dismounted, leaving only two remaining, while of these one had had its carriage very badly damaged.Also, several more shells from the war-ships must have fallen among the riflemen, for the dead and wounded were now lying scattered about in heaps upon the sand, while the fire from the men in the jungle had dwindled very considerably.

The boats, too, had by this time pushed off from the sides of the transports and were heading—twelve of them altogether, crowded with men—in three lines, “in line ahead”, as Frobisher would have phrased it, for the shore.Each of the leading boats was a steam pinnace whose work it was to tow the rest, and in the bow of each pinnace the Englishman was able to make out a small swivel-gun, with the gunners standing by ready to open fire as soon as the boats drew within range.It could not now be long before the end came, for, when once the boats had landed the troops, the rebels would be hopelessly outnumbered; and it seemed evident that Frobisher’s hope of being rescued by the latter was doomed to disappointment.

By this time the dusk had closed down sufficiently to enable Frobisher to distinguish the trains of small sparks left behind by the fuses of the time-shells which were now bursting thickly over the jungle, the idea of the Chinese evidently being to drive the men concealed there out into the open; and the plan succeeded admirably, although not quite in the manner anticipated.

Frobisher had watched shell after shell fall among the brush and reeds, and had seen group after group of men come reeling out from cover, only to be mowed down by the rifle fire from the fort, when suddenly he perceived a small tongue of flame shoot upward from the seaward corner of the jungle—the corner which was, unhappily for the rebels, right to windward of them; and although a number of men immediately rushed to the spot and did all in their power to trample or beat out the flames, it was of no avail.The fire spread with appalling rapidity, and five minutes after that incendiary shell had fallen the whole of the outer edge of the jungle was a continuous sheet of flame, the roar of which was plainly audible to the imprisoned spectator.

Great masses of dense smoke were driven upward and forward through the jungle, and presently the hidden rebel soldiery came streaming out, driven forth by the flames and smoke; and so swift had been the advance of the fire that the clothing of some of the last to escape was actually smouldering.

Darkness was now falling rapidly, and, sorry as he felt for the rebels in their defeat, the young Englishman could not but admire the weird magnificence of the scene displayed before him.A section of thick jungle, fully a quarter of a mile long and a hundred yards wide, was one roaring, crackling mass of fire.The flames were leaping forward at the rate of many yards a minute, while they must have attained a height of fully thirty feet.Clouds of dense smoke billowed upward, their under surfaces vividly illuminated by the ruddy reflection of the leaping flames.Even the sea itself, for a mile round, was brilliantly illuminated by the glare, and the three little fleets of boats, which were now approaching the shore, with jets of flame spurting from the muzzles of their swivel-guns, appeared to be floating in liquid flame.

Here, there, and everywhere could be heard the explosions of ammunition as the flames reached the loose piles of cartridges which each man had placed beside himself while firing on the fort; and, with the continuous flash and explosion of the shells as they plunged into the earth, the black silhouettes of the men and guns upon that background of smoke and flame, and the deep, orange glow of the reflected flames in the sky, the scene so indelibly impressed itself upon Frobisher’s memory that he is not likely to forget it as long as he lives.

The fire greatly assisted the garrison and the men in the boats, for it afforded them ample light to direct their volleys accurately, and also to choose the most favourable spot at which to effect their landing; and it soon became perfectly clear that all hope of success on the part of the rebels was at an end.Yet, even now they would not admit, to themselves, much less to their enemies, that they were beaten.Slewing round their two remaining guns, and collecting their scattered and sadly-depleted forces into one compact body, they abandoned the attack on the fort, and directed the whole of their energies to the task of preventing the troops from landing from the boats; enduring the persistent volleys poured into their ranks from the fort with the most stoical resignation.The gunners pointed and elevated their pieces as coolly as though they were firing for practice at a target, and the riflemen loaded, and fired their volleys at the word of command as steadily and as accurately as though there were no foemen returning their fire, and no remotest possibility that every man of them would be shot or cut to pieces within the next quarter of an hour.

And, had their numbers not been so dreadfully reduced during that fierce, all-day struggle, it is quite possible that they might have won, after all; for the guns were so well served, and the rifle volleys directed with such deadly aim, that the boats and their crews were beginning to suffer severely.Already two of the towed boats had been sunk, and had been cut adrift so that they should not delay the others; and so terrible was the punishment inflicted by their enemies that the landing party could not afford to stop to pick up their crews.The bay was known to be swarming with sharks, and it was not therefore probable that very many, even of the unwounded, would reach the shore alive.

One of the swivel-guns, too, mounted aboard the steam launches, had been struck and hurled overboard by a well-directed shot, and Frobisher could distinguish many a limp and lifeless form hanging over the boats’ gunwales, with arms trailing helplessly in the water.

But the Chinese were no less obstinate and determined than their opponents.They had set out with the intention of landing, and they meant to carry out their resolve.The three steamers were still puffing bravely onward, and moment by moment the distance between their bows and the beach became less.

Then, suddenly, high above the crackling of flames, the rattle of rifle fire, and the crashing explosions of the guns, the young Englishman heard the clear notes of a bugle pealing out.It was evidently the command to fix bayonets, for the flash and glitter of steel could be seen as the Chinese drew them from their scabbards and fixed them to their rifles.A second call pealed forth, and the towropes were cast off, oars splashed into the water, and, with a wild exulting yell from their occupants, the boats dashed for the shore, the men in them hurling themselves into the shallow water as the keels ground into the beach.

And now the time had plainly come for the rebels to make their last stand.They were hemmed in on three sides—on one side by the fire, which was now raging furiously; on the opposite side by the cannon and rifle fire from the fort; and on the third by the men from the ships, who were now forming up in line on the beach.The only avenue of escape left to them was in the direction of the town, nearly four miles distant.But if they chose to retreat in that direction they could scarcely avoid being cut to pieces by their pursuers; there seemed, therefore, to be nothing for them but to remain where they were and fight until they were overwhelmed by superior numbers, killing as many of the enemy as possible before they died.And this was evidently what they meant to do.

The two remaining field-pieces were brought close together, their muzzles pointing seaward, and all the ammunition-boxes belonging to them and to the wrecked guns were brought up and placed behind them.Then the survivors from the day-long struggle formed up, three deep, on either side of the guns, the first line lying down, the second kneeling, and the third standing, so that the rear-rank men should not fire into their comrades in front when the volley firing commenced.The gunners loaded their guns to the very muzzle with solid shot—case, chain, grape, and whatever else they could find—and then took up their positions behind the pieces, waiting for the command to fire.

For a few tense seconds the two bodies of men remained motionless, forming a tremendously impressive tableau.There was the line of uniformed Chinese soldiery, their bayoneted rifles held at the charge, their officers standing in front and on the flanks with drawn swords; and on the other side was the little body of rebels, smoke-grimed, blood-stained, ragged and weary, but with indomitable resolution written all over them.Then the Chinese bugles again sounded, the officers shouted a word of command, and the landing party, with a wild yell of defiance, charged headlong up the beach, their swords and bayonets flashing in the lurid light of the flames.But they had scarcely covered half a dozen yards when the rebel guns crashed out, and their contents went hurtling through the closely-packed ranks, leaving wide lines of dead and wounded in their track, while immediately afterward came the rattling report of volley-firing as the rebels discharged their rifles.The Chinese troops seemed to be literally smitten to a halt before that awful storm, almost as though they had charged up against a solid wall, while the cries, shrieks, and groans that uprose into the still evening air thrilled Frobisher with horror.

The check, however, was but momentary.The troops instantly rallied, and before those cruel guns, or even all the rifles, could be reloaded, the Chinese were among the rebels, the cold steel got to work, and a scene of sanguinary, relentless, hand-to-hand fighting ensued, the memory of which was to remain with Frobisher for many a long day.Before the end was reached he could no longer bear to look on, but, climbing down from his perch, seated himself on the floor and covered his face with his hands.

For another ten minutes the fearful sounds continued unabated, and then silence gradually fell; and a little later the moon rose over a scene of carnage such as had seldom been witnessed even upon the blood-stained soil of Korea.Of the rebels not a single man remained alive.

So completely overwhelmed was Frobisher by the horror of what he had witnessed, that he sat motionless and so utterly oblivious to his surroundings that he never heard the grating of the key in the lock of his cell door, never heard that door open and close, and never knew that he was not still alone until he happened to glance wearily up, and beheld the Governor gazing down at him with a sardonic smile; while two other men, with masks over their faces, stood at attention but a few paces from him.One of them held a coil of stout rope in his hand, and Frobisher stared at it apprehensively.It was then too late to put into practice his resolves of the night before.The sword with which he had meant to do so much execution was out of reach; and he knew that the slightest movement to secure possession of it would mean a disabling wound from a bullet of the revolver which the Governor held suggestively in his hand.And he could not afford to take the risk, since with such a wound all chance of escape would be at an end; although, as appearances went, chances of escape appeared to be singularly scanty just now.The prisoner felt instinctively that a momentous crisis was at hand.

“Well, Mr Frobisher,” presently exclaimed the Governor, speaking in his perfect English, “have you seen fit to change your mind since I last had the pleasure of seeing you?You will of course be aware by this time that you cannot hope for help from your friends outside—they have been very effectually wiped out, to the last man—and I really think you would be well advised to fall in with my suggestions.”

“Sir,” returned Frobisher, “I have already stated my final decision; and no amount of argument you can bring to bear will make me alter my resolution.You may do whatever you please, since you have the power, but I assure you that you will draw no information out of me.”

“Very well,” retorted the Chinaman; “you have spoken, and we shall soon see to what lengths your determination will carry you.I have known many men who, at the outset, seemed to be quite as resolute as yourself; but it has invariably happened that, after receiving the attentions of these assistants of mine,”—here he indicated the masked men in the background—“they have come to their senses with marvellous swiftness.As I really need the information I have asked you for in all courtesy, I have no option but to obtain it by the only other means available, therefore—”

He uttered a few rapid sentences in Chinese, indicating certain machines and instruments by pointing at them.Frobisher shrewdly guessed, from the man’s actions, that he was instructing his assistants to apply some form of torture to the prisoner; and the young Englishman braced himself for the struggle which now seemed inevitable.The chamber was but dimly illumined by a single lantern, which his unwelcome visitors had brought with them, and by the flickering light of the dying flames from outside; and of this uncertain light he sought to take advantage, hoping that he might succeed in securing possession of a weapon of some sort before his enemies could divine his intentions.

Availing himself of the fact that the attention of the two assistants was momentarily diverted from himself to the Governor while the latter issued his instructions, Frobisher cautiously edged his way toward the spot where lay the sword which he had already fixed upon as a particularly suitable weapon, should he need one for purposes of self-defence; but just as he was in the very act of reaching for the weapon, the Governor happened to glance toward him, evidently guessed what his prisoner contemplated, and promptly levelled his revolver.As the muzzle came up it spouted flame, and Frobisher heard the bullet sing past his ear, to flatten itself against the massive stone wall.Again the vicious little weapon was fired; but at the precise instant that the Chinaman’s finger pressed the trigger, Frobisher leaned over and grasped the hilt of the sword; and again the bullet missed.A third time the revolver spoke in as many seconds, and Frobisher’s arm tingled to the elbow as the bullet struck the blade and glanced off the steel, luckily away from instead of toward his body; and at the same instant the two assistants, recovering from their momentary paralysis, hurled themselves upon him.

Standing where he now was, close to the pile which he had reared against the wall to serve as a platform, the prisoner raised his weapon and quickly swung it over his shoulder, intending to make a sweeping cut at his assailants as they came on; but the blade came into violent contact with the erection behind him and baulked his blow.Nevertheless he was able to bring the weapon into a position which afforded him the opportunity to receive the most eager of his adversaries upon its point.With a smothered groan the man dropped writhing to the ground, while Frobisher, hitting out with his left fist, caught the second man fair on the point of the jaw.The man went reeling backwards against the Governor at the precise moment when that individual again pulled trigger.The result was another miss, which so utterly exasperated the Chinaman that he hurled the revolver at Frobisher’s head and incontinently turned and fled, locking the cell door behind him.

With two of his foes hors de combat and the other fled, the Englishman felt himself to be master of the situation.

Keeping his eyes warily upon his prostrate foe lest he should be shamming and should strive to take him unawares, the young Englishman now seized the lighted lantern and proceeded to hunt for the Governor’s revolver, which he presently found and thrust into his belt, after satisfying himself that it still contained two live cartridges.Next he picked up the coil of rope and bound the prostrate man.

Hardly had he accomplished this business when he thought he detected the sounds of voices—that of the Governor and some other—and footsteps approaching outside his prison door.The next instant he was sure of it.The voice of the stranger was raised as though in anger or altercation, while that of the Governor was pitched lower, in tones that seemed to convey the idea of expostulation, entreaty, and apology.

There seemed to be a further altercation outside, the stranger speaking in an angry, authoritative voice; then the lock grated harshly as a key was inserted and turned, the door flew open, and a man entered, dressed in Chinese naval uniform, or what passed for uniform in those days, closely followed by the Governor, whose countenance betrayed a curious mingling of ferocity, apprehension, and anger.

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Chapter Eight.

Frobisher’s Commission.

The Chinese naval officer—who, Frobisher decided, was undoubtedly a man of high rank and very considerable distinction—looked keenly about him for several minutes, evidently taking in and forming his own opinion as to the details of the scene which met his gaze.Then he stared long and appraisingly at the young Englishman, who thought he detected the ghost of a smile hovering about the new-comer’s mouth as he again glanced at the forms of the two assistants.Turning to the Governor, the navy-man sharply addressed what seemed to be a series of questions to him.The Governor replied, making what Frobisher guessed to be a long and elaborate explanation.Finally, with a gesture expressive of anger and impatience, excited apparently by the unsatisfactory character of the Governor’s explanation, the stranger cut him short and turned to Frobisher.

“Sir,” he exclaimed, touching his cap as he stepped forward, and speaking almost as excellent English as the Governor’s own, “permit me to introduce myself.I am Admiral Wong-lih, of the Imperial Chinese Navy; and I deeply regret that it should have become my duty to offer apologies, on behalf of my illustrious master, to an Englishman who has been unfortunate enough to undergo such treatment as you have suffered at the hands of a countryman of mine.”Here he turned and glowered at the Governor, who bowed deeply, probably to hide the chagrin and annoyance that showed themselves only too plainly in his yellow face.

“My name,” returned the Englishman, “is Murray Frobisher; and I was, some time ago, a lieutenant in the British Navy.I came out here for the purpose of delivering a cargo of arms and ammunition to the Korean rebels at a certain Korean town.Owing to the treachery of a native in my employ, I was betrayed into the hands of the Korean regular troops, and brought here a prisoner.The situation in which you found me was the result of his Excellency’s desire to obtain further information respecting the rebels and their arrangements.Of such information, I may tell you, sir, I possess very little, and under any circumstances I should not have felt myself at liberty to divulge even that little.I should like to add that I by no means range myself on the side of the rebels, for, as a matter of fact, I know too little of the circumstances of the case to judge between them and the Government, although, from what I have already seen, my sympathies, such as they are, are on the side of the insurgents.I am in no way connected with the insurgent forces; and when captured I was merely acting the part of agent of another private individual in convoying that caravan across country.But of course, when an attempt was made to take that property out of my hands, I had no option but to try to defend it.That, sir, is the full truth of the matter; and I desire to place myself under your protection as an officer of the Chinese Navy, that I may not again be subjected to the kind of treatment which I have suffered since my arrival here.”

“I thank you,” returned the officer, “for your voluntary explanation with regard to your connection with the rebel forces; which explanation, I may mention, differs very considerably from the statement made to me by his Excellency here.At the time that that statement was made it struck me as being somewhat faulty, and therefore I determined to investigate matters for myself—a course which I am now very glad I adopted.I was informed by his Excellency, when I enquired whether any prisoners were confined here, that there was but one, yourself; and that you were merely undergoing temporary imprisonment as a result of your being captured in arms, so to speak, against the Korean Government; and it was not until I entered this chamber and saw—what I saw—that I dreamed of the occurrence of any such atrocity as has been practised on you.Again I offer you my most heartfelt apologies.”

“Which I most cordially accept, in the spirit in which they are offered,” said Frobisher, extending his hand, which Wong-lih grasped and pressed in a friendly fashion.

Then, turning to the Governor, the admiral icily remarked, still in English:

“I will detain you no longer, your Excellency.I desire to have a little private conversation with this gentleman; and when I require your attendance again I will send for you.Pray leave us.”

“Your Highness’s commands shall be obeyed,” replied the Governor, bowing; and with a sullen scowl on his brow the man turned and left the room, giving the impression that he would gladly have slammed the door behind him, had he dared.

“Highness!”thought Frobisher to himself, during the short pause that ensued.“I seem to be suddenly getting among very important personages—with a big ‘P’, too.This particular prince must be quite a celebrity in his own country, I should judge, by his behaviour.The Governor seemed to be a man of considerable importance, I thought; but even he has to curl up and eat humble pie when this man speaks to him.”

“Now, Mr Frobisher,” continued the admiral, “I trust that you will excuse my claiming your attention for a few minutes longer, for I should like to have a little conversation with you, and this appears to be the only room in the fortress where we can talk without being overheard.You informed me, just now, that you are an ex-naval officer.Would you object to informing me of the reason why you are no longer in the Service?”

“Not at all,” replied Frobisher.And thereupon he proceeded to give the admiral a circumstantial account of the accident which led to his dismissal from the Navy.When Frobisher had finished his recital, Wong-lih pulled his long moustache thoughtfully for a few moments without speaking; then he said:

“Well, Mr Frobisher, I am bound to admit that I think you have been very harshly treated.I do not consider that the fault lay with you at all, but with the men who ought to have been on the look-out aboard the steamer which ran you down.There was never any question, I presume, as to your efficiency as a seaman?”

Frobisher flushed slightly.“None whatever, sir,” he answered.“I have always been considered a quite capable officer, I believe; and, previous to the accident of which I have spoken, my skill as a seaman was never once called in question.”

“I am glad to hear that,” was the admiral’s reply, “for I have a suggestion to make which I trust may meet with your approval.I suppose I may take it for granted that you are open to an offer of employment in your own vocation?”

“Well,” returned Frobisher, hesitatingly.“I scarcely know how to answer that question.You see I signed on under—under—”

“You may safely continue, Mr Frobisher,” smiled the admiral.“Everything you may say to me here shall be considered as absolutely private.”

“Under Captain Drake, of the Quernmore, then,” Frobisher continued; “and although I did my best to carry out his orders, I failed, and he will consequently be a very heavy loser.My failure cannot, I think, be considered my fault; and, as I only signed on for the voyage out here, I suppose I may now consider myself a free agent, especially as I have not yet drawn any pay for my services.But I feel that it is perhaps my duty to go back to Sam-riek, to see Captain Drake and explain matters; for he may be waiting there for me, expecting my return.”

“Of course I do not know Captain Drake, or how he would be likely to act under the circumstances,” rejoined Wong-lih; “but I feel sure that by this time he will have learnt of the capture of the consignment—news travels fast out here, you know; and knowing that you had fallen into the clutches of the Korean troops, he will, to put it bluntly, expect never to see you alive again.Nor would he ever have done so, but for the fortunate circumstance of the arrival of my squadron here on this particular day.This being so, it occurs to me that Captain Drake would not be at all likely to risk a long stay at Sam-riek in the very forlorn hope of your returning, but would get away from the place as quickly as possible.I should not be at all surprised if his vessel were to be found in Chemulpo harbour within the next few days.In any case, if you really wish to communicate with him you can write him a letter, and I will engage to get it delivered to him, if his ship is still in these waters.How would that suit you, Mr Frobisher?”

“The arrangement will suit me admirably, sir,” replied Frobisher, “though I cannot quite see why I should not endeavour to rejoin Captain Drake.You mentioned, however, I remember, something as to my being open to accept other employment.Possibly that may have some bearing upon the matter.”

“It has everything to do with it,” said the admiral, “as I will endeavour to show you presently.But, first of all, I must ask you to listen to me for a few minutes while I try to give you an insight into the trend of recent events out here; for unless I do so, you will be unable to understand what I am ‘driving at’, as I believe you English call it.”

“Pray proceed, sir,” was Frobisher’s reply.

“Very well then.You are of course aware that rebellion has been rife in Korea for some months past, hence the endeavour of the insurgents to procure arms; while the Korean Government has been making every effort to put down the rebellion without the necessity of asking for outside assistance or intervention.The attempt, however, has not been a success, for the rebels are making headway all over the country; to such an extent, indeed, that the Korean Government has at last been obliged to apply to my Imperial master, the Emperor, for assistance.That application arrived some weeks ago; but it was only a few days ago that the necessary arrangements could be completed for armed intervention on our part.It was necessary to get together troops, transports, and so on, and to recall some of our men-of-war to act as convoy; and all this naturally took time.

“The preparations were finally completed, however, and four days ago I embarked the troops and left Wei-hai-wei for the port of Asan, where we now are, and which was reported to me as being a centre of disaffection, a hotbed of rebellion.But I most certainly never anticipated, when I left, that I should have the pleasure of rescuing a fellow sailor from a most serious predicament.However, to continue.By the convention of 1884 at Tien-tsin, between China and Japan, it was agreed that, should either country have occasion to send an armed force into Korea, the sender should inform the other country of the circumstance, giving full particulars of the reason, the strength of the force sent, and any other information deemed necessary.This was done by cable, before I left Wei-hai-wei, and the Japanese reply arrived by cable, also before I left.It was curt in tone to a degree, and intimated briefly that Japan intended to send a guard to Seoul for the protection of her ambassador—as though we ourselves could not afford him the necessary protection—and hinted very strongly that she might consider it advisable to send an armed force of her own—to see that we do not run away with the country, presumably.

“Little enough, you will say, to cause misgiving on our part; but the fact remains that relations between China and Japan have been very strained for some time past, and our Council feels that this action on our part will bring matters to a head, especially in view of the veiled threat that Japan may perhaps find it necessary to land an armed force herself.Matters look very ominous, Mr Frobisher, in the opinion of nearly all our leading men, so we are naturally eager so to order things that, if trouble should arise between the two countries—as I, for one, feel certain it will—we shall not be entirely unprepared.It is most unfortunate, however, that we are at present extremely short of naval officers; indeed, if war were to break out to-morrow it is an absolute certainty that several of our men-of-war would be unable to put to sea, for want of capable officers to man them.Crews sufficient we have, but officers—”

“Surely you are not serious, sir?”exclaimed Frobisher.

“But I am, indeed, sir,” replied Wong-lih.“And now you will see whither this long story of mine is leading, and why I asked you if you would be ready to accept employment.Stated very briefly, the situation is this.If you will agree to my proposal, I can secure for you the position of captain on board a very fine new cruiser of ours, which, at present, we cannot send to sea for the reason I have just mentioned.I cannot actually make the appointment myself, but I can give you passage to Wei-hai-wei, whence you can easily reach Tien-tsin, where the Council is now sitting; and on my recommendation there would be no hesitation on its part about giving you the post—quite the reverse, indeed.There would be no unpleasant conditions imposed upon you; you would not be required to become a Chinese subject, or to do anything, in short, that would affect your allegiance to your own glorious Queen—whom may Buddha in his mercy preserve!All that would be required of you would be an oath to serve faithfully and to the best of your ability while in the Chinese service.Now, I have said my say; let me have your opinion and decision, for I have already spent more time in this fortress than I should have.”

For some moments Frobisher remained in deep thought.Undoubtedly, this offer of Wong-lih’s opened up a most rosy vista of the future.Captain of a fine new cruiser, with the prospect of a naval war in the near future—what more could any Navy man ask for?There would be chances in plenty to win honour, fame, renown; and his name might even go down in history if he had any luck!It was a tempting bait, indeed, that Wong-lih held out; and, being at a loose end, the Englishman would have been more—or less—than human if he had not jumped at it.Besides, why should not he?His own country had rejected his services; another country, apparently, had need of them: so why should he not sell his sword to that country?There was no reason at all, so far as he could see; and his mind was made up in less than a minute.

Turning to Wong-lih, he held out his hand with the simple words, “I accept”; and by so doing, altered the whole course of his existence, and opened up for himself a vista of such dazzling brilliance that, could he but have glanced into the future, even his steady, somewhat unemotional brain might have been very nearly turned.But before this could be realised he was to pass through scenes and experiences which were to leave their mark indelibly upon him.

The admiral returned Frobisher’s grip with great heartiness.

“I am rejoiced to learn your decision, Mr Frobisher,” he said, bowing courteously; “and I feel sure you will never have cause to regret it.For such a man as yourself, the Chinese Naval service, at the present moment, offers almost unlimited scope; and there is no reason at all why you should not, in the course of a few years, rise to the highest position in it.We urgently need good men just now, for I am sorry to say that bribery, corruption, and treachery are frightfully prevalent in both the Army and the Navy; and my heart sometimes misgives me when I think of the revelations that are bound to be made when we come to hand-grips with Japan—as I feel confident we soon shall.

“But I must not continue in this strain, or you will be refusing the job with thanks. I suppose there is nothing to keep you here? I mean, you will be able to accompany me back to my ship and make the voyage to Wei-hai-wei with me? I return almost immediately, for my duties consisted simply in convoying the transports here, and looking into matters at Asan sufficiently to enable me to make a report on my return; and that I have already done; so that I am prepared to weigh as soon as it is daybreak. I shall be honoured, also, if you will consider yourself my guest while on board the Hai-yen, my flagship.”

Frobisher bowed his thanks.“The honour is mine,” he said, “and I shall have great pleasure in accepting your kind invitation.Also, as I have absolutely nothing but what I stand up in, my preparations are not likely to occupy much time,” and he laughed.“But,” he continued, as Wong-lih turned toward the door, “there is one thing which I think we have both forgotten, and which may prove an insuperable objection to my joining the Chinese Navy.”

“And that is?”enquired the admiral, raising his eyebrows.

“That I have practically no knowledge of the Chinese language,” replied Frobisher.“To be of any real use as captain of a cruiser it seems to me that a thorough acquaintance with Chinese is an absolute necessity.”

“If that is your only objection,” exclaimed Wong-lih in a tone of relief, “you may dismiss it at once. I had not overlooked the fact that you might be ignorant of Chinese; but we shall do for you exactly what we are doing in the case of Captain Foster of the battleship Chen-yuen, who is also an Englishman.We shall provide you with an efficient interpreter, whose sole duty it will be to remain constantly at your side and translate your wishes and commands into Chinese; so, you see, there will be no difficulty at all on that score.Now, if you are quite ready, shall we go?I have no time to spare, and, moreover, the atmosphere of this place is anything but agreeable.”

As he spoke, the admiral opened the heavy door and, courteously signing to the Englishman to precede him, allowed Frobisher to pass out into the stone-flagged corridor.Thence they followed the route by which the Englishman had been brought on the previous day, until they came to the room in which he had been cross-examined by the commandant of the fort; and there they found the latter, with the Governor and several other officials, all of whom respectfully rose to their feet upon the admiral’s entrance.

With a somewhat curt gesture Wong-lih directed them to be seated; and then ensued a rather lengthy conversation in Chinese, the principal part of which was borne by the admiral, who seemed to be asking questions and issuing instructions.Then, rising to his feet, he dismissed the little group and requested Frobisher to follow him.

“Before we leave, sir,” exclaimed the Englishman, suddenly remembering, “I should like to ask a favour.When I was captured by the Korean troops I had in my possession a pair of rather valuable revolvers, which I prize very much, apart from their intrinsic value, from the fact that they were given me by a very dear friend.I feel convinced that the officer who seized them has not allowed them to pass out of his hands; and, if he happens to be in the fort, I shall be very much obliged if you will request him to return them to me.Also, if the jacket that was taken from me has been preserved, I should like to have that as well.I may perhaps be permitted to mention, too, that I have not tasted food for fully twenty-four hours, and am feeling the need of a meal.”

“My dear sir,” exclaimed Wong-lih, in tones of genuine concern, “what can I have been thinking of not to have enquired if you were hungry!My only excuse is that I was so full of the matter we have just been discussing, that the first rules of hospitality escaped me for the moment.If you will remain here for a few minutes I will myself see that food is served to you.I will at the same time make enquiries about all your property; and if it is indeed here it shall most certainly be returned to you.I will be with you again very shortly.”

With these words the kind-hearted admiral left the room, returning presently with Frobisher’s pistols in one hand and the jacket in the other, bringing also the welcome information that a meal was being hastily prepared, and would be served with the utmost expedition.

Half an hour later Frobisher, feeling a new man and quite himself again, followed Wong-lih out of the fort and down to the beach, where the admiral’s own boat was now waiting to take him on board.On the way thither it was necessary to pass over the scene of the day’s battle, and although it was night and the only illumination came from the moon, and the lantern which the admiral’s coxswain was carrying, there was light enough to reveal many of the horrors of the past day’s fight, and Frobisher was more than glad when that blood-stained field was left behind and they came to the margin of the clean, wholesome sea.

Here they found the officer in command of the troops who were to remain in Korea and to assist the Government in stamping out the rebellion.They were, it afterward transpired, first of all to occupy the town of Asan, and operate against the insurgents, with Asan as their base, until further instructions were received or other developments arose; and the officer was then waiting to hold a short consultation with Wong-lih with reference to his future course of action, so that the admiral would be in a position to report fully to his Government upon his return to China.The transports, which had also been fitted up as store-ships, were to remain behind in Prince Jerome Bay, with one of the gunboats to protect them, while the two cruisers and the other gunboat were to proceed to sea immediately.

The general plan of campaign had evidently been already arranged, for a quarter of an hour later the officer and Wong-lih saluted each other in farewell, and the Army man returned to the fortress, where the troops were quartered for the remainder of the night, while the admiral entered his barge, and, with his latest recruit in the stern-sheets beside him, was pulled swiftly away to the Hai-yen

Once on board, the admiral conducted Frobisher to a handsomely-furnished cabin, of which he was to have the exclusive use during the voyage, and also, with his characteristic kindness, presented him with a complete Chinese Naval captain’s suit in perfectly new condition, which by a lucky chance proved to be a very passable fit.Of course Frobisher was not as yet entitled to wear it, but Wong-lih was so certain that the proposed appointment would be promptly confirmed that he had no qualms in donning it.

It was by this time not very far off daylight.Frobisher therefore decided that, tired though he felt, he would not turn in just yet, but would wait for sunrise in order to watch the squadron get under way.Wong-lih also had no intention of retiring during the short time that still remained before they were ready to leave, so he invited the young Englishman into his own spacious and luxuriously-fitted quarters in the stern of the ship, where the two remained smoking, talking, and drinking coffee, until the sound of the morning gun from the fort, followed by the report of one of the twenty-four pounders on deck, announced that it was “official sunrise”, and that the hour had arrived for them to take their departure.

With the admiral’s permission Frobisher followed him on deck and up on to the bridge, where a yeoman of signals was already waiting to hoist the necessary flags as a signal to the other ships to weigh and proceed to sea.Thick, greasy columns of smoke were rising from the funnels of all three craft, proving, to the Englishman’s experienced eye, that the coal they were using was quite unsuited to Naval requirements; while a white feather of steam rising from their steam-pipes showed that there was already full pressure in their boilers.After a comprehensive look round, the admiral spoke a few words to the signalman, and a moment later a string of parti-coloured flags soared aloft to the cruiser’s yard-arm.

Instantly the shrill clamour of boatswains’ whistles was heard from each ship, and next followed the measured “clank-clank-clank” of iron cable, as the steam-capstans got to work and began to haul the vessels up to their anchors.For a few seconds the clatter subsided as the strain of “breaking out” the anchors came upon the cables, then it started again with a rush; and presently the dripping, mud-bedaubed anchors made their appearance under the bows, and were catted and promptly stowed.

Then, slowly at first, but with gradually increasing speed, the Hat-yen’s screws revolved, the decks quivered, and the ship began to slide through the water, her bows turning toward the entrance of the bay as she did so. The other cruiser fell into line astern of the flagship, and, with the gunboat bringing up the rear, the squadron headed for the open sea in line-ahead formation, sped upon its way by the salutes of the fort and the remaining gunboat, to which the Hai-yen’s guns replied.

Wei-hai-wei is only a matter of some two hundred miles from Asan; and at midnight the squadron found itself entering the Chinese harbour, where a number of twinkling lights betrayed the presence of other ships belonging to the Navy.The anchors were let go just opposite the fort, and both Frobisher and the admiral went below to enjoy a well-earned rest and refresh themselves in readiness for the duties that awaited them on the following day.

---

Chapter Nine.

On the Rocks.

Bright and early the next morning Frobisher met Wong-lih on the quarter-deck of the Hai-yen, and the admiral announced his plans with regard to both his own affairs and those of the Englishman. He mentioned that he would be detained for some days at Wei-hai-wei making arrangements for the repair of the ships—each of which had been more or less damaged by the rebel fire during the fight in Prince Jerome Bay—and getting a new ten-inch gun mounted in the Mai-yen’s forward turret, to replace the one which had been dismounted on the same occasion. This, he estimated, would occupy about a week; and, when this work had been put in hand, there were several minor duties in the dockyard which he reckoned would occupy him for another week, making about a fortnight before he would be able to get away to Tien-tsin to make his report in person.

It would therefore be necessary for him to send a messenger with dispatches to the Council, giving an outline of what had taken place; and he gave Frobisher the choice of accompanying the flag-lieutenant who was to carry the dispatches to Tien-tsin—with a letter from himself to the Council recommending his appointment—or of remaining in Wei-hai-wei until he, the admiral, was ready to go to Tien-tsin and personally present his protégé to the Council.

To this Frobisher made reply that, if it suited the admiral equally well, he would much prefer to accompany him to Tien-tsin; for he was extremely anxious to secure the appointment as captain of the cruiser, and knew—from what he had already learned of Chinese officialdom—that he would have a far better chance with Wong-lih by his side as sponsor, than he would as the mere bearer of a letter of recommendation from the admiral.It was accordingly so arranged; and he spent the intervening time in looking round the port, arsenal, and dockyard of Wei-hai-wei, picking up all the information he could with regard to Chinese Naval matters, and also managing incidentally to acquire a small—very small—smattering of the Chinese language, which was afterwards of considerable use to him.

On a certain afternoon, Wong-lih drove up to the hotel where Frobisher was staying, and announced that his duties were now completed, and that he was ready to start for Tien-tsin. There was, luckily, a dispatch-boat in the harbour which had just arrived at Wei-hai-wei from Chemulpo, on her way to Tien-tsin; and the admiral had decided to take passages in her for Frobisher and himself. The Englishman therefore had only to pack the few belongings which he had purchased in the town; and five minutes later the curiously-assorted pair were being conveyed in a rickshaw, drawn by a Chinese coolie, down to the dock, where the San-chau, dispatch-boat, was lying.

The voyage from Wei-hai-wei to Tien-tsin is only a short one, of some three hundred miles, but the course lies across the Gulf of Chi-lih, notorious for its dangerous fogs at this season of the year and the typhoons which, at all times, are liable to spring up with only the briefest warning; and about two hours after they had left port, and were passing the bold headland beneath which stands the city of Chi-fu, it began to look as though they were in for one of the latter.

Wong-lih and the captain of the dispatch-boat held a short consultation as to the advisability of running into Chi-fu harbour for shelter; but as the roadstead was somewhat open, it was finally agreed to push on, at top speed, and endeavour to get clear of the Shan-tung peninsula and the Miao-tao islands before the storm broke.Otherwise, they might find themselves in rather an awkward situation.

Steam was therefore ordered for full speed—about seventeen knots—and the San-chau began to move more rapidly through the water, at the same time altering her course so as to pass outside the islands instead of through the Chang-shan-tao channel, as had at first been intended.

The sun set luridly in the midst of a blaze of wild and threatening cloud, and the light breeze which they had so far carried with them suddenly died away to nothing, leaving the surface of the sea like a sheet of oil, through which the San-chau drove her bows as through something solid. The air felt heavy and damp, and so devoid of life that Frobisher found it difficult to supply his lungs with sufficient air; and although the weather was intensely cold, the atmosphere still felt uncomfortably oppressive.

About two hours later, while the ship appeared to be steaming through a sheet of liquid fire, so brilliant was the phosphorescence of the water, there came, without the slightest warning, the most dazzling flash of lightning Frobisher had ever beheld, followed almost on the instant by a deafening peal of thunder, indicating that the centre of disturbance was almost immediately overhead.So dazzlingly bright was the flash that almost every man on deck instinctively covered his eyes with his hands, under the impression that he had been blinded; and several seconds elapsed before any of them were able to see again distinctly.

As though that first flash had been a signal, the air at once became full of vivid darting lightnings, so continuous that an almost uninterrupted view of the sea, from horizon to horizon, was possible, and the man on the look-out in the bows was therefore enabled to give timely warning of the approach of a white-capped wall of water of terrible aspect. So rapid was its rate of travel that the steamer’s skipper had barely time to make a few hasty preparations to meet it, and to shout to the men on deck to “hold on for their lives”, when, with an unearthly howl and roar, the storm was upon them. The wall of water crashed into and over the San-chau with a power that made it appear as though she had struck something solid; and for a few moments Frobisher, clinging to the bridge rail beside the captain and Wong-lih, could see nothing of the deck of the ship, so deeply was she buried in the wave. The wind, too, wrestled with and tore at ventilators, awning stanchions, and the boats slung from the davits, until he momentarily expected to see the latter torn from their lashings and blown overboard.

The canvas dodgers round the navigating bridge, which they had not had time to remove, were ripped from their seizings and blown away to leeward, where in the glare of the lightning they showed for a few moments like white birds swept away on the wings of the wind.The men themselves, thus exposed to the full fury of the blast, were obliged to cling to the bridge rails for their very lives, to avoid being torn from their hold and whirled overboard; and when the first lull came their muscles felt as though they had been stretched on the rack, so severe had been the strain.

Then, as though the wind had taken a breathing space to recover fresh energy, the hurricane burst upon them again, almost more furiously, if that were possible, than at first; and Frobisher knew instinctively that, so far from making headway, the San-chau was being driven back over the course she had just covered, at a rate of probably five knots an hour, in spite of the fact that her engines were going full speed ahead at their utmost capacity. Anxious glances were cast ahead and astern—ahead to ascertain whether there were any signs of the typhoon breaking, and astern in momentary dread of sighting the distant loom of the land toward which, as all knew, they were being slowly but inexorably driven.

Suddenly the skipper, who had been peering eagerly to windward under the broad of his hand, turned to Wong-lih and spoke a few rapid sentences in Chinese, at the same time pointing in the direction towards which he had been looking.The admiral’s eyes followed the outstretched finger, and Frobisher also glanced in the same direction.The captain had apparently seen, or believed he had seen, something strange away to the westward.

A moment later Frobisher knew what it was.Far away, on the edge of the horizon, appeared a small spark of light which shot rapidly up into the sky, where it hung for a few seconds and then burst into a mushroom-shaped cluster of red stars that gradually floated downward again, fading from view as it did so.

“That,” shouted Frobisher excitedly to Wong-lih, “is a rocket, sir.There’s a ship away there which has been less fortunate than ourselves; she’s evidently in distress; and, from her position, I should say that she has probably been driven on to the Miao-tao rocks.”

“Without doubt,” returned Wong-lih, “that is the fact of the matter; and there are probably many poor fellows perishing away there, almost before our eyes, while we are utterly unable to help them.If a vessel has really gone ashore on those rocks I fear that her crew is doomed; for no ship could long survive in this weather.Get my telescope,” he added, in Chinese, to a quartermaster who happened to be on the bridge at the moment; and when the man reappeared with the glass, Wong-lih brought it to bear upon the spot where the rocket had appeared, which he was easily able to do with the assistance of the lightning, still blazing almost continuously.

“By Kin-fu-tzi!” exclaimed the admiral, a few seconds later, “that craft is very much nearer than I thought from the appearance of her rocket—not more than seven miles away, at the utmost. She is a two-masted, one-funnelled steamer, and, I’m almost certain, is a man-o’-war. Now, what should she be doing just there? Have the Japanese sent a vessel over here for scouting purposes, or is she one of our ships? She looks very much like—and yet she cannot be, surely,—the ship I intend you to have, Mr Frobisher—the Chih’ Yuen, the new cruiser which we have purchased from Great Britain, and which only arrived out here a few weeks ago. But I do not understand what she is doing there, if it is she; for, as I told you, we had no captain in our whole service to whom we cared to entrust her, which was one of my reasons for asking you to take service with us. I cannot understand it at all,” and he began to gnaw his moustache perplexedly. “But perhaps,” he continued, “I may be mistaken. I must be mistaken; it cannot possibly be the Chih’ Yuen.”

At this moment another rocket went soaring up into the night sky, followed by another and another; and then the distant boom of a signal-gun came to their ears, borne on the wings of the hurricane.

“May the spirits of their ancestors protect them!”exclaimed Wong-lih piously.“We, alas, can do nothing!She will be lying fathoms deep in the gulf by morning.”

But, as though in answer to the admiral’s prayer—so suddenly did the change take place—there came a lull in the furious wind, and the three men on the bridge were able to spare a hand to dash the spray from their eyes before the gale struck them again.This time, however, the wild outburst lasted only a few minutes, then ceased as suddenly as before; the thunder was less loud, and the lightning was far less vivid and terrifying.Then the black pall of sky above them began to break up into isolated patches, and a few minutes later the moon and stars showed intermittently between the rifts; the storm was dying away almost as quickly as it had sprung up.But, unfortunately, as soon as the wind dropped the sea began to rise, until within a very short time there was quite a heavy swell running.

The captain of the dispatch-boat lost not an instant in heading his ship direct for the spot from which the rockets had been seen to rise.The vessel’s search-light was brought into action, and the skipper told off a man to sweep the sea ahead with its powerful beam, so that the exact position of the wreck might be located at the earliest possible moment; for during the last few minutes no rockets had been sent up, which was a very sinister sign.

With the cessation of the wind the heavy sea did not very greatly interfere with the San-Chan’s speed, and she raced through the water on her errand of mercy at the rate of fully eighteen knots, the bearings of her engines smoking as the oil from the cups dripped upon their heated surfaces; and it was not more than half an hour before the man at the search-light found his object and kept the beam playing on her. She was then only a few miles ahead, and stood out, a great mass of silver in the rays of the search-light, against the black background of the night, with the sea breaking over her. Through the telescope her people could be seen running about her decks, and steam was still blowing off through her waste-pipes, so, apparently, the water had not yet reached her engine-room. Frobisher noticed that no effort was being made to get the boats out; but this might be because of the heavy sea running.

At all events, the craft was still above water; and there was little doubt that her crew could be saved, even though they might not be able to save the ship.

In another quarter of an hour—speed having been meanwhile reduced so as to lessen the danger of their running aground—the San-chau arrived abreast of the other craft, which proved indeed to be a cruiser, and laid off at a distance of about half a cable’s length, her screw revolving slowly, so as to keep her from drifting down upon the wreck. Then, seizing a megaphone, Wong-lih hailed, and asked the stranger’s name.

A man in a drenched Naval uniform similar to that which Frobisher was wearing leant over the rail of her navigating bridge and gave a lengthy reply, which the Englishman, of course, could not understand; but from the expression on the admiral’s face he could see that the news was not at all of a satisfactory character.When the other officer had finished speaking, Wong-lih ground out a few tense words that sounded suspiciously like a Chinese execration, and, turning to Frobisher, exclaimed in tones of the deepest annoyance:—

“This is most unfortunate indeed, Mr Frobisher. As I almost suspected the moment I discovered that yonder craft was a cruiser, she is the Chih’ Yuen, the ship to which I intended you to be appointed. And now look where your future command lies! So surely as either Admiral Ting or I are out of the way, something of this sort inevitably happens. It’s those mandarins again, of course, who are at the bottom of the whole trouble. That fool aboard there who calls himself the captain tells me that, shortly after I sailed, Prince Hsi, who considers himself an authority on Naval matters, decided that the guns in the fore barbette of the Chi’ Yuen were of too small a calibre, and in my absence he managed to prevail upon the Council to send her to Wei-hai-wei to be docked and have her 9.4’s replaced by 12-inch guns. Twelve-inch guns in a ship of her size! The man is mad! But I know his game. His intention was to have sold the 9.4’s, replacing them with a couple of old, out-of-date 12’s which I happen to know are lying in the yard, and pocketing the difference.

“That is the sort of thing that goes on in my unhappy country all the time, Mr Frobisher—theft, bribery, corruption, all manner of petty chicanery, especially in matters connected with the Army and Navy; and then they expect us unfortunate officers to do our work with any old material that the high officials have not thought it worth while to pilfer!It is heart-breaking.There, in order to replenish the pockets of Prince Hsi, lies one of the finest cruisers in our Navy, wrecked, and likely to be lost entirely if it comes on to blow again.But,” he went on, still more excitedly, “she shall not be lost.I will get her off, and she shall go to Wei-hai-wei to be repaired in dock—but not to have her guns exchanged.Those in her shall remain there; and his Highness can look elsewhere for something to fill his coffers.”

Again seizing the megaphone, Wong-lih entered into a long conversation with the temporary skipper of the Chih’ Yuen, during which he ascertained that the vessel had fortunately struck only very lightly; and, as she had been considerably sheltered from the seas by the part of the reef through which she had somehow managed to blunder before striking, she had not bumped to any extent, and was making but little water. It was therefore to be hoped that her bottom was not so badly injured as Wong-lih had at first anticipated, and that, at the rising of the tide, it might be possible, with the assistance of the San-chau, to get her safely off again.The admiral intimated to her captain that he would stand by all night, and would commence salvage operations as soon after daylight as the state of the tide would permit.Meanwhile steam was to be kept in the boilers, and the pumps were to be kept going continuously, so as to free the ship from water by the time that morning dawned.

High tide, Admiral Prince Wong-lih ascertained from his almanack, was at about seven-thirty on the following morning; so before daybreak all hands were mustered and preparations put in hand for running a hawser across to the Chih’ YuenThe sea had gone down during the night until, when the first streaks of daylight came stealing up out of the east, it was almost as calm as on the previous afternoon before the storm.

Frobisher was one of the first among the officers to turn out and go up on deck, and he occupied the time until breakfast very pleasantly in watching the cruiser’s boats running out kedge-anchors. Everything being then in readiness, and both ships being under a full pressure of steam, the crews went to breakfast; and directly that was disposed of, the San-chau’s boats were sent across to the cruiser with a light steel hawser, Wong-lih accompanying them in person, to see that “that fool of a captain” did not make any mistakes this time. The light hawser having been taken aboard the Chih’ Yuen, the towing hawser, also of steel, was bent on to the end still on board the dispatch-vessel, and was hauled from her through the water on board the cruiser.

As soon as this was done, the ends of the steel hawser on board both craft were backed by several thicknesses of best Manila hemp, in order to procure the necessary elasticity and guard against the wire-rope parting when the terrific strain should be put upon it. After this the hemp portion of the tow-rope was secured to bollards on the quarter-decks of both craft, the slack of the hawsers attached to the kedge-anchors was taken up, the skippers stood by their respective engine-room telegraphs, and, at a signal from Wong-lih, the San-chau went slowly ahead until the towing hawser was taut. Steam was then given to the after-winches aboard the cruiser, to which the kedge-hawsers were led, the screws of the Chih’ Yuen were sent astern at full speed, while the San-chau went ahead with every ounce of steam her boilers could supply to the engines.

The great steel cable vibrated until it fairly hummed with the strain, the Chih’ Yuen’s winches bucked and kicked until Wong-lih, on the cruiser’s bridge, momentarily expected them to break away altogether, and the white water foamed and roared under both vessels’ quarters as the screws whirred round. For several minutes it seemed as though the attempt was doomed to failure, and that all the cables would part without the cruiser budging an inch; but quite suddenly, as Frobisher watched, keeping the cruiser’s mast in line with a pinnacle of rock about a quarter of a mile behind her, he detected a slight movement. The vessel’s mast appeared to vibrate, as though the cruiser herself were pulsing with life, and then it slowly, very slowly, moved backward, until mast and pinnacle were a little out of line.

“She moves! she moves!” he shouted, waving his cap in his excitement; and then, like a vessel gradually sliding off the stocks when being launched, the Chih’ Yuen gathered way, and a few moments later she slid bodily off the rock with a plunge that caused the San-chau to roll as though in a heavy sea, overrunning her kedge-anchors before her momentum could be checked.

She was afloat again, however, and Frobisher breathed a sigh of thanksgiving.He had set his heart on commanding her, and he would have been bitterly disappointed if so fine a ship had been lost to him and the Navy through the despicable cupidity of a mandarin and the incompetence of a Chinese so-called sailor.

Wong-lih remained aboard the cruiser for another hour or more, until he had satisfied himself that the leaks resulting from her strained and buckled plates were not so serious but that they could easily be kept under by the pumps; and then, having signalled for the first lieutenant of the San-chau to come aboard and take charge of the cruiser, in place of the incompetent captain, he ordered the latter to accompany him back to the dispatch-boat under arrest, as a preliminary to his appearance before a court martial at Tien-tsin on the charge of stranding his ship.

Wong-lih and the captain having boarded the San-chau, steam was rung for, and presently the two ships proceeded on their respective voyages, dipping their flags to each other as they parted company.

“It was most fortunate that we saw those rockets last night,” observed Wong-lih, when he and Frobisher were again standing together on the San-chau’s bridge. “Had we not happened to be on the spot at the moment, the Navy would have lost the Chih’ Yuen, without a doubt. As it is, I fear she is rather badly damaged, and it will probably mean a few months in dock for her before she is fit for service again—which is all the more deplorable, because we may need her at any moment. At a crisis like this every vessel counts, especially in such a small navy as we possess. I am afraid you will not be joining your ship just yet, Mr Frobisher; but I have not the least doubt that, when we reach Tien-tsin, some congenial service will be found for you which will keep you occupied until the Chih’ Yuen is repaired. There is plenty of work, and very few officers to do it; so you need have no apprehension whatever on the score of non-employment.”

“I thank your Highness,” answered Frobisher.“I am rejoiced to hear you say that, for I confess I felt very sore when I saw my ship, or what was intended to be my ship, cast away on the Miao-tao reef.”

Twenty-four hours later the San-chau steamed past the Taku forts, flying the admiral’s flag to announce that Wong-lih was on board, and received and answered a salute from the batteries; and shortly afterward the anchor was dropped in the middle of the river, opposite the handsome city of Tien-tsin, upon which Frobisher now looked for the first time.

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Chapter Ten.

The Pirates’ Lair.

It was about midday when the San-chau anchored off the port of Tien-tsin; and Wong-lih suggested to his young protégé that they should lunch aboard before going ashore to the Navy Buildings, which were at that time situated in the “Street of many Sorrows”—an ill-omened name, indeed, as after-events were to prove.

They were nearing the completion of the meal when there came a knock upon the cabin door, and the sentry announced that a messenger had arrived with a letter for “his Highness, the most honourable Admiral Prince Wong-lih”. The admiral opened and read it, wrote a brief reply, and then explained to Frobisher that, the arrival of the San-chau having been observed, and his own presence on board disclosed by the fact of his flag flying from the fore-topmast head, the Council, then sitting in debate at the Navy Buildings, had sent to say that they would be glad to see him on a matter of importance as soon as he could make it convenient to come ashore.

“Further developments in Korea, I suspect,” observed the admiral, frowning.“I pray that no open rupture between ourselves and Japan may occur just yet; for we are utterly unprepared.We must put off the evil day as long as possible, even if we have to humble ourselves before them for a month or two; for it would be absolutely suicidal for us to engage in a war with Japan at the present moment.Our ships are good; our men are excellent fighters; and to the outsider it would naturally appear that all the advantages are on our side: but alas!men, however brave they may be, cannot fight to win under the command of inefficient officers, and with arms, ammunition, and stores that may fail them at any moment.Ah me!ah me!”

“You feel, then,” said Frobisher, “that war is inevitable?”

“I am sure of it,” replied the admiral.“Perhaps not to-day, or to-morrow; but war there certainly will be before many months are past.I only wish I could bring the realisation of this fact home to some of those officials who are content to wait and wait, spending the country’s money, if not on themselves personally, at any rate upon things on which it ought not to be spent; until the time comes, all too suddenly, when they will awake to the fact that they have procrastinated too long, and that their country is at the mercy of the enemy.”

“Let us hope, sir,” replied Frobisher, cheerfully—for he had begun to have quite a strong liking for the cultured and patriotic Chinese gentleman and sailor, and was sorry to find him taking so pessimistic a view of the situation—“that matters are not so bad as you imagine, and that China will issue from the coming struggle more powerful than before.”

“We will, indeed, hope so,” said Wong-lih, rising.“But I greatly fear that our hope will be unfulfilled.However, an end to these dismal forebodings of mine, Mr Frobisher!I am growing old, and am on that account more liable, perhaps, to look on the dark side of things.Let us go ashore now, and see what it is that the Council wishes to talk about.I will seize the opportunity to introduce you to the officials composing it, and we will get your commission made out and signed, so that you may be ready for service whenever called upon.”

With these words Wong-lih went up on deck, followed by Frobisher, and the two men, entering the San-chau’s gig, were pulled ashore.

Frobisher was very favourably impressed by the handsome appearance of the various public buildings, and was quite astonished at the size and magnificence of those devoted to the Navy Department, when he and his companion finally halted before the wrought-iron gates which gave admittance to the grounds surrounding them.

Wong-lih, exhilarated at the near prospect of a discussion upon his favourite subject, the Navy, ran up the steps leading into the building with the activity of a boy; and in a few minutes the two men found themselves in a beautifully-furnished antechamber, whither they had been conducted to wait for the summons to present themselves before the all-powerful Council.Frobisher himself felt just a trifle nervous at the prospect, but Wong-lih’s countenance was transformed by a happy smile, while he actually sniffed the air from time to time, like an old warhorse scenting battle.

Presently a door, opposite that by which the two had entered, opened, and a gorgeously-dressed attendant stepped up to Wong-lih and saluted, saying something at the same time in Chinese.

“Come along, my young friend,” smilingly exclaimed the admiral, as he rose to his feet; “the moment of your ordeal has arrived.Present a bold front, my boy; there is nothing to be nervous about, I assure you.”

He led the way, through the door which the attendant respectfully held open, into another chamber—or rather hall, so large and lofty was it—where Frobisher saw a group of Chinamen, nine in number, seated round an oval table on which a quantity of official-looking documents were lying.So far as it is possible to tell any Chinaman’s age from mere observation, they were all elderly men, with the exception of one individual, who was obviously quite young, and who was seated at the right hand of the one who was clearly the chief official present.

He was a man of perhaps thirty, or possibly younger still, with a very yellow skin, a long, very thin, drooping moustache, and brilliant, coal-black eyes, deeply sunken in their sockets, out of which they glared with an emotionless, steely glitter that reminded Frobisher most unpleasantly of a snake.There was also in them something of the deadly malevolence that all snakes’ eyes seem to possess, and the Englishman could barely repress a shudder of disgust as he found those eyes fixed on his, for he felt as though he had suddenly come in contact with some noxious reptile.

As they entered, the Council, with the exception of the man just referred to, rose and bowed solemnly to Wong-lih, who returned the bow ceremoniously.He and Frobisher were then signed to seat themselves, after which the Councillors resumed their seats.

Commencing with the old man at the head of the table, each of the members of the Council in turn questioned Wong-lih, and a long conversation in Chinese ensued, which Frobisher was of course unable to understand.He occupied himself with looking round the room and admiring the wonderful carving and the priceless tapestries on the walls, and was quite taken by surprise when he suddenly heard Wong-lih’s voice calling his name.

He was then introduced to the Council collectively, and a number of questions were put to him in English, with which tongue he was beginning to think every Chinaman must be familiar, so many had he already encountered who were able to speak it almost as fluently as himself.Like many of his fellow countrymen, he had up to now imagined that the Chinese were a barbarous race, knowing nothing of anything that happened outside their own country.

Apparently he soon satisfied his examiners as to his nautical attainments; and presently he found himself in possession of a parchment which set forth the fact that Murray Frobisher was appointed to the Chinese Navy with the rank of captain; and he was informed that he was to take command of the Chih’ Yuen as soon as she was ready for service again. Until that time he was to consider himself on the staff of Admiral Wong-lih, who would find employment for him in the interim. After this little ceremony a further lengthy discussion took place in Chinese, and it was not until late in the evening that he and his sponsor were able to get away and return to the ship.

Arrived there, they proceeded to the cabin where Wong-lih had taken up his quarters, and here Frobisher received an account of what had occurred at the meeting.

“It seems,” announced the admiral, “that a dispatch has been received from our Minister in Tokio, informing us that the Japanese, although they have sent an escort for their Minister at Seoul, have decided to delay for a time the dispatch of a large armed force to Korea, and to await further developments. This is grand news, for it gives us a little longer in which to make our preparations; but our Minister also advises us to be on our guard, for Japan means to force a quarrel, sooner or later. Now, as regards yourself, news has recently been brought that the river merchants of the Hoang-ho have been greatly troubled lately by the excesses of a band of pirates, who are believed to have their head-quarters somewhere near the place where the old bed of the river leaves the present channel—that is, not far from the village of Tchen-voun-hien, three hundred miles from here. I wish you to take command of the gunboat Su-chen, and proceed in her to this place.You will investigate the matter thoroughly; and, if the stories are anything approaching truth, you will hunt down that band of pirates, and destroy them and their head-quarters.No quarter must be shown, Mr Frobisher; those criminals must be dealt with severely.

“The interpreter I mentioned to you shall be attached at once to your person, and I shall be glad if you will enter upon your new duties immediately. Oh, by the way, I have also had news of your friend, Captain Drake. He was told of what had happened by a survivor from your party; and he came round here in the Quernmore to demand that we send an expedition to rescue you. He appears to be very much attached to you.

“Of course he was told that such a course was not to be thought of, besides being quite useless; and he appeared to be very much cut up at the news, so I am told.He accepted a contract from the Navy Department for the supply of a cargo of arms, ammunition, and guns, and left in his ship for England only a week before our own arrival here.When he returns, should you not be here yourself, I shall of course inform him of your rescue, and so ease his mind.

“Now, Captain Frobisher, I have little more to say.Get away as soon as you can.Your crew is already aboard; and, if you need any stores or ammunition, indent for them in the usual way; they will be duly supplied.But there, I need not tell a British Navy man how to do his business.Good-bye, my boy, and Heaven grant you a safe return!”he concluded, affectionately.

The two men clasped hands, Wong-lih buried himself in a mass of papers, and Frobisher departed to bed to refresh himself in readiness to commence his duties early on the following morning. His last thought, as he dropped off to sleep, was that he was now Captain Frobisher, of the Chih’ Yuen; and that it would not be his fault if he did not make her name famous in Chinese Naval history.

He awoke in the morning, however, utterly unrefreshed, for he had slept badly.A vague feeling of foreboding and a strong presentiment of disaster had oppressed him throughout the night, and his dreams had been haunted by a thin, yellow face, with long, attenuated, drooping moustache—a face out of which peered a pair of eyes, glowing like flame and with hideous possibilities of evil shining in their black depths.The face was the face of Prince Hsi, the youngest member of the Council.

The splendid, keen, invigorating air of a Chinese morning soon blew the cobwebs away from Frobisher’s brain, and half an hour after leaving his bed he was smiling to himself at his own folly in allowing Prince Hsi’s evil countenance to affect him to such an extent as to spoil his rest. The man couldn’t help being born with a face like that; and perhaps an ugly exterior might in reality hide a very kind and gentle soul. By the time that Frobisher had arrived at the wharf where the Su-chen was lying, he had completely forgotten the existence of “the man with the snake’s eyes”, as he afterwards came to call him.

The interpreter promised by Wong-lih had duly presented himself to Frobisher on board the San-chan that morning, and the Englishman very soon began to find the man’s services invaluable. With his assistance, the Su-chen was easily located, and Frobisher at once boarded her and made himself known, and read his commission to her officers and crew through the medium of Quen-lung, the interpreter. A very quiet, decent set of men they seemed to be, to all appearance. They gave him such information as he asked for, quickly and without hesitation; and, so far as he could learn on such brief acquaintance, seemed thoroughly conversant with their duties. He made enquiries about the amount of water and provisions that was aboard, satisfied himself that there was a sufficiency to serve them for the expedition, and then went into the question of the quantity of ammunition remaining on board.

This did not at all satisfy his requirements; for he found that, although there appeared to be plenty of small-arm ammunition, there was very little belonging to the machine-guns and the guns in the batteries; so, taking Quen-lung with him, he made his way to the magazines, taking his requisition book with him in his pocket.

It was then that he obtained his first insight into the subtle ways of Chinese Naval officialdom.He knew perfectly well what kind of ammunition he required, and how much of it, but he seemed utterly unable to find anybody who possessed the necessary authority to issue it.He was sent from one official to another, all of them gorgeously dressed and very eager to give every assistance; yet when the moment arrived for the stores to be actually given into his hands—well, they were heart-broken to give the honourable captain so much trouble, but would he be pleased to obtain the approval of his Excellency the honourable Somebody Else, whose signature was also needed before the ammunition could be removed.

At last, so disgusted did Frobisher become at all this delay and prevarication that he went back to the Su-chen, selected some twenty of the strongest members of his crew, and himself took them up to the magazine with a number of hand-wagons which he had collected, under much voluble protest, en routeThen, having found the required pattern of cartridge, he ordered his men to load the cases on to the wagons, and, amid the intensely-shocked expostulations of the outraged officials of the Ordnance Department, who were quite unaccustomed to fill a requisition in less than a month, the several indents were wheeled down to the gunboat by the Chinese sailors, who already began to show the respect they felt for a man who knew what he wanted, and got it.

The task was finished at last, and that afternoon the Su-chen dipped her ensign to the San-chau, on board of which Admiral Wong-lih had his quarters, steamed down the river Pei-ho, past the Taku forts at its mouth, and out into the open sea on her way to the mouth of the Hoang-ho, some three hundred miles up which lay the village of Tchen-voun-hien, at or near which the pirates’ lair was said to be situated. During the hundred-mile run across the gulf of Chi-lih, Frobisher set his men to clean ship thoroughly, overhaul and polish the guns, and make things in general a little more shipshape than they had been since the time when the Su-chen left her builders’ hands on the Thames.

Frobisher was fortunate in the moment when the gunboat arrived off the mouth of the Hoang-ho, for the sea was smooth, and the usually dangerous bar at the mouth of the river was passed with ease.But there were many reminders, in the shape of broken spars, and in some cases fragments of hulls, projecting out of the water, to show that the sea was not always in so gentle a mood, and that many other captains had been less fortunate.The bar at the mouth of the Hoang-ho is indeed one vast graveyard, both of men and ships.

Frobisher anchored a few miles up the river, and spent a whole day exercising his men at cutlass and small-arm drill, to smarten them up a little and prepare them as far as possible for the cut-and-thrust work which, he felt sure, the task of exterminating the pirates would ultimately involve. Early on the following morning the voyage upstream was continued, the Su-chen making not more than about six knots an hour against the strong current, the result, evidently, of heavy rains up-country, for the river—well named the “Yellow River”—was thick and turbid with mud, which had been washed off the surface of the land by the floods.

Mile after mile the Su-chen crept along, and the low, flat, uninteresting banks slipped gradually astern. A few junks were passed, but they were all too far away for Frobisher to communicate with them, as they were well in under the land, while the gunboat was obliged, on account of her draught, to keep more or less in the centre of the river.

One afternoon, however, there came from the man whom Frobisher had posted in the foretop, to give warning of rocks or shoals, a shout that there was a dismasted junk about a mile ahead which appeared to be trying to intercept the gunboat.She seemed, the look-out reported, to have been on fire, as well as having lost her mast, for he could plainly make out through his telescope the black patches where her deck and bulwarks had been charred.There were only two men on deck, he added, and these men were doing all they could to attract attention, waving something—he could not quite make out what—above their heads, and leaping about excitedly.There were other dark-coloured patches about the deck, but at that distance it was not possible to say whether they were the result of fire, or of something else.Frobisher, however, who had carefully listened to a report of the details from the interpreter, had the conviction that there had been some happening on board that junk other than that of mere fire, and that he was shortly to receive evidence with his own eyes of the activities of the pirates whom he was going to exterminate; for he felt certain that the dark stains were not those of fire, but of blood.

As soon as the unwieldy craft, which was progressing solely by the force of the current, approached to within a quarter of a mile of the Sit-chen, Frobisher rang his engines to half-speed, so that the gunboat barely made headway against the current, and thus awaited the junk’s arrival.The gunboat was skilfully manoeuvred alongside her, and the crew, with ropes and grapnels, soon secured her, and assisted the two men who formed her sole complement up on deck.Here Frobisher, after giving them some refreshment, of which they were plainly in great need, questioned them through the interpreter as to the cause of their present condition.

It was precisely as he had expected. The junk had, it seemed, sailed a few days previously from Tchen-tcheou, a town about six hundred miles from the mouth of the river, with a valuable cargo of sandalwood intended for Tien-tsin; but on passing the spot where the old bed of the river used to lie before the channel was diverted, she had been attacked by no fewer than five large and heavily-armed junks, crowded with men. Before the crew could even place themselves in a position for defence, the junk had been seized and the men cut to pieces by the ruthless pirates. The two men standing on the Su-chen’s deck had escaped as by a miracle, for, after taking all her cargo out of the junk and throwing dead and wounded overboard, the leader of the pirates had indulged his humour by binding the two survivors and laying them on the deck, afterwards firing the junk and setting her adrift. The men had secured their freedom by one of them gnawing the other’s bonds loose, and they had then managed to extinguish the fire.

But—would not the honourable captain take his ship up the river, and wipe the pirates out, lock, stock, and barrel?Frobisher informed them that such was his intention; and, after asking the two men whether they would accompany him as guides, and receiving their assurance that they desired nothing better, he set the junk adrift again, since she was absolutely useless, and continued his journey.

At nine o’clock the next morning one of the two new men, who had been looking keenly ahead for a few moments, came up to Frobisher and pointed out what appeared to be a large, square, stone-built castle, or fort, standing some distance back from the river bank, upon the top of a knoll of rising ground.

“That,” he announced, “is the pirates’ head-quarters.There is a little bight just at the junction of the old and the new channels, and it is there that they lie in ambush with their junks.Now, sir, you can perhaps see their masts standing up behind that low bank yonder?”

Frobisher looked, and counted, indeed, five masts. They were, then, evidently those belonging to the pirate junks which had attacked the Chinese merchantman on the preceding day; and the fort on the hill, yonder, was the pirates’ lair which he had been specially dispatched from Tien-tsin to destroy. He rubbed his hands gleefully and gave orders to clear for action; then, with his telescope fixed unwaveringly on the fort, he leant over the bridge rail, watching, while the Su-chen, her engines working at full pressure, stemmed the muddy tide on her errand of retribution.

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Chapter Eleven.

Tchen-voun-hien.

The Su-chen was about five miles away when the fort first came into view, and for about a quarter of an hour she steamed ahead without any sign of life or of alarm becoming perceptible in the vicinity of the pirates’ head-quarters. Frobisher was beginning to hope that fortune was so far favouring him that perhaps the freebooters might have set out on some buccaneering expedition inland upon this particular morning, and that he might thus be able to land, seize and destroy the junks, and occupy the fort during their absence; at the same time preparing an unpleasant little surprise for the pirates when they returned.

But his hope was doomed to disappointment.Still keeping his eye glued to the telescope, he suddenly observed a flash and a puff of white smoke leap out from a corner tower of the fort, and a few moments later the dull “boom” of a fairly-heavy gun made itself heard.At the same moment a tiny ball soared aloft to the head of the flagstaff on the battlements, which ball presently broke abroad and revealed itself as a large yellow flag of triangular shape, the apex of the triangle, or fly, being circular instead of ending in a point.There was also a design of some description embroidered on the flag in the favourite Chinese blue, but what the design represented Frobisher could not imagine.He had never beheld anything like it in his life, so he turned to Quen-lung, who was, as usual, standing alongside him, and, handing him the telescope, told him to take a look at the piece of bunting and say what the decoration on the flag was intended to represent.

Quen-lung obediently placed the eyepiece to his eye, and a few seconds later Frobisher observed the man turn pale and stagger backward, almost dropping the telescope as he did so.The man’s eyes were dilated, his face turned the colour of putty; his lower lip had dropped, and his hands were trembling as though palsied.He presently recovered himself, however, and the colour gradually returned to his face.Frobisher asked what ailed him.

“Oh, sir,” he answered, “turn back; turn back before it is too late.I have read the design on that flag, and know we can never hope to succeed against those who fight under its folds.I may not say—no man who knows may tell what those characters signify; but the men who belong to the Society that flies that ensign have never been conquered, and not a single one among them has ever been captured, although troops have been sent against them time after time.No one has ever returned alive to tell what happened; and we can only guess.They have sworn enmity against the whole human race, and their numbers are always being increased by the addition of men who have wrongs to redress, or believe themselves to have been injured by their fellows; and it is said that they always put their captives to death in an unspeakably horrible manner, although no witness has ever returned to tell the tale.I am sure that, if the admiral had known who the people were whom he wants to destroy, he would never have sent the expedition at all.”

Frobisher looked the man up and down for a few seconds, as though he thought that the fellow’s mind had given way.Then he said, sternly:

“What child’s talk is this, Quen-lung?Do I hear a man speaking, or is it a boy, frightened by a bogy?What are you dreaming about, that you tell me I had better return without attacking these pirates?I am most certainly going to attack them, and my orders are to exterminate the whole crew of them; so you will very soon be able to disabuse your mind of the belief that they are invulnerable, as you seem to suppose.You say that no man has ever escaped them; but there are two men on board now to contradict that statement—the men we rescued from the junk.No, no, my good man; you’ve been listening to some old woman’s tale and allowed it to frighten you.You’ll see that you will be quite all right as soon as the fighting begins; you will do your part as well as the best of us.”

This he said in the hope of infusing a little backbone into the man, who was shaking like a leaf; but his words had no effect.Quen-lung was terrified, there was no doubt of that, and it seemed to Frobisher that his terror arose not so much, from fear of the pirates themselves as from some supernatural power which he appeared to attribute to them.

“Well, master,” he said resignedly, “if you insist on attacking them, you must; but you will not win.I know it; I can see it!”And without another word he walked to the other side of the deck and leant over the bulwarks, his chin resting on the palms of his hands, staring moodily down into the muddy water.

By this time the Su-chen had approached to within a distance of about a mile from the fort and the small bight in the river, inside which lay the five junks, and Frobisher determined to try a sighting shot at the building, to accustom the men to a changing range. He therefore ordered the men to load the four-inch gun forward, bring it to bear on the square tower from which the pirates’ signal-gun-had been fired, and discharge it when ready.

The gun was loaded and trained, and the gunner laid his finger on the firing key; there was a deafening report, the boat quivered from truck to keelson, and Frobisher, watching, saw the shell strike and burst full on the centre of the tower, in which a ragged hole immediately afterwards appeared.

“Good shot!”he ejaculated, laying down his telescope.“Let us try a few more of the same kind, men.That will soon show those fellows that we mean business.Where’s their invulnerability now, Quen-lung—eh?”

His words were drowned by a terrific discharge from the fort, the whole eastern front of which seemed to break out into flame and smoke, while a perfect storm of shot, shell, and small-arm missiles swept the ship, striking down men, ripping up planking and bulwarks, cutting rigging, and generally doing a tremendous amount of damage.

From all over the decks came the cries and groans of wounded men, mingled with execrations from the unwounded who had seen their friends shot down.Frobisher himself, when he had wiped the blood out of his eyes which had flowed into them from a small wound on his forehead caused by a flying splinter, was astounded to observe the amount of damage and the number of casualties that had resulted from that one discharge.The pirates had somehow managed to get the range to a nicety, and every shot had come aboard.There were no less than nine men killed and wounded, and the crew of the four-inch gun were all down.Unconquerable or not, the pirates were certainly marvellously clever gunners, and their weapons must be both heavy and modern.

At the same moment Frobisher observed a movement among the masts of the junks; and presently, to his amazement, he saw that they were coming out from behind their shelter, evidently with the intention of fighting him from the river as well as from the shore.Well, he would make short work of them, anyway.They were only made of wood, and a few well-directed shots between wind and water should send the whole fleet to the bottom in short order.With this end in view, he ordered every gun that could be brought to bear to be fired at the junks, meaning to clear them out of the way before turning his attention entirely to the fort; for he could see that they were crowded with men, and it might be rather awkward for his ship’s crew if they managed to get alongside.The gunboat’s sides were low, and it would be an easy matter to board her from craft standing as high out of the water as those junks.

The men sprang to their posts with alacrity, and soon the duel was in full swing. The junks were, like the fort, very heavily armed—much more heavily than Frobisher had in the least anticipated—and their accurately-aimed shot came ripping and tearing through the Su-chen’s wooden bulwarks and sides with terrible effect. In addition to solid shot the pirates were using shell, and the air was soon full of flying pieces of metal, which struck men down in every direction. Only inside the iron casemates did there seem to be any protection from that deadly storm, and there the Chinese sailors were serving their guns coolly and with excellent aim. Shot after shot struck one or other of the junks, and Frobisher could see them actually reel under the impact; but so far no shot had been lucky enough to strike below or on the water line, and so sink any of them.

The Su-chen was now, he considered, quite close enough to both fort and junks; he therefore rang for half-speed, at which the vessel just held her own against the current, the junks themselves having anchored in order to avoid being swept down under the Su-chen’s guns.

So the battle went grimly forward.Frobisher soon discovered that his big body was being made a target for small-arm fire, and was shortly obliged to leave the bridge, in order to avoid being shot.He therefore took up his post in the forward starboard casemate, from which position he could observe the enemy and at the same time encourage his crew to greater efforts.This he was obliged to do by signs, for at the beginning of the battle Quen-lung had vanished, and Frobisher was unable to catch a glimpse of him anywhere.He had doubtless sought the seclusion of his cabin, in the hope that there he might find safety, oblivious of the fact that the enemy were using such large and powerful guns that the wooden sides of the gunboat offered little more protection than he would have obtained out on deck.Frobisher determined to go and find him, when he could spare a moment or two from the matter in hand, bring him up on deck, and thus teach him, by the most practical of methods, how to stand fire without flinching.

At present, however, he had more than enough to occupy him, without thinking of Quen-lung. The fort had brought all its guns to bear on the Su-chen directly the gunboat became practically stationary, and it, as well as the junks, was making such excellent practice that Frobisher at length began to realise that he was in a very warm corner indeed, out of which it would tax his skill to the utmost to extricate himself, to say nothing of carrying out his expressed intention of destroying the pirate stronghold. There was, of course, still time to retire, to return to Tien-tsin and bring reinforcements, explaining to the admiral that one small gunboat was utterly inadequate to undertake so important an enterprise as this was proving to be; and this would doubtless have been his wisest plan. But this particular Englishman happened to be one of those who do not know when they are beaten, and the mere idea of retreat never so much as entered his mind.

He therefore went about from gun to gun, cheering and encouraging the men, sometimes training one of the weapons himself, and all the while impressing upon the crew—as well as he could by signs—the necessity for holing and sinking the junks as speedily as possible, and so reducing to some extent the severe gruelling to which the Su-chen was being subjected.

At last his constant exhortations began to have their effect. A well-directed shell from the four-inch gun—laid, as it happened, by Frobisher’s own hands—struck the junk at the end of the line nearest to the gunboat full upon the water line, and exploding, blew a hole in her nearly a yard square; while from the interior of the smitten junk arose a chorus of screams, groans, and yells, proving that the flying splinters of the shell had done other work as well. Those on board the Su-chen saw the water pouring into the pirate vessel in a very cataract; she heeled farther and farther over, and in less than a minute after the shell had struck, righted herself for a second, and then plunged below the surface, carrying with her the greater portion of her crew.

“Hurrah, boys!”shouted Frobisher, “that’s one gone.Repeat the dose with the next fellow, and we’ll soon put the whole crowd of them out of business!”

The rousing cheer with which his men responded to words which they could not possibly understand, but the meaning of which was sufficiently clear, was answered by a yell of rage and defiance from the pirates, accompanied by another furious bombardment from their guns and small-arms; and Frobisher, gazing at the havoc caused by the discharge, and the bodies with which his decks were strewn, realised that the destruction of that one junk had but animated the pirates to fresh exertions, and that the victory was not yet even half-won.

Realising that it was imperative to silence the fire from the junks if success was to be obtained at all, he signed to the gunners to load and direct all their pieces upon the next junk, firing together, in the hope that the combined discharge might effect the desired result.And so it did.The missiles all struck the craft almost on the same spot, and a few minutes later she, too, took herself and her crew to the bottom, leaving only three junks to deal with—and the fort, which was blazing away merrily and doing a good deal of damage, though not so much as the junks, the gunners on board which appeared to be specially-trained marksmen.

The enthusiasm of the Chinese sailors at this second stroke of luck was immense, and they threw themselves into their work with unabated energy, despite the fact that fully a quarter of their comrades were lying dead or wounded around them.

The cries of the wounded for water were dreadful, despite all that could be done to help them.Frobisher had already told off as many men as he could spare to carry water, but it seemed impossible to quench the poor wretches’ thirst; their cry was always for more, even though they had drunk but a moment previously.The unwounded men appeared to be quite indifferent, however, both to their own comrades’ sufferings and their own chances of death or mutilation, and went on serving the guns as calmly as though they were at target practice.Frobisher realised then, as numbers of white men have realised since, that the Chinese soldier and sailor, properly trained and properly led, constitutes some of the finest fighting material in the world; and that, if a leader ever arises, capable of drilling and controlling the vast mass of material which China contains, it will be a very bad thing indeed for the white races.A properly-drilled, well-trained, well-armed, and capably-led army of perhaps fifty million fighting men would be invincible; an invasion of Europe by such a force could not possibly be withstood.That dreadful day is, however, far in the future, let us hope.

Frobisher now turned his attention to the third junk, still carrying out his plan of sinking them one at a time, and determined to lay and fire the four-inch gun again himself, in the hope of repeating his former successful shot.The shell and cartridge were rammed home and the breech closed and screwed up, and having trained the gun, he pressed his finger to the firing key, springing back directly afterward to avoid the recoil.But to his astonishment there was no report: the weapon did not discharge.He therefore set and pressed the key again, but once more there was no result.It was evidently a miss-fire.The young man knew, of course, that sometimes a cartridge will “hang fire”, and that many a gun’s crew have been blown to pieces by prematurely opening the breech, but he forgot all about that now in his anxiety, and unscrewed and opened the breech-piece immediately.Nothing happened.There were the marks of the percussion-pin upon the primer of the cartridge, but the ammunition had failed to explode.

Hastily calling for another cartridge, he withdrew the faulty one and thrust in a fresh one, closing the breech and repeating his first operation; but again the cartridge failed to explode.Something was seriously wrong somewhere—but what?Was it the powder that was faulty or damp, or the primer that was ineffective?It was impossible to say without examination.Another cartridge and still another were tried, and every time the result was the same, until Frobisher began to feel seriously alarmed.

Encouraged by the cessation of fire from the Su-chen, the junks had redoubled their own, and the gunboat was rapidly becoming as riddled as a sieve, while men were falling fast in every direction. The ship’s funnel was as full of holes as a cullender, the shrouds of the foremast were cut to pieces on both sides, the mainmast had long since been shot away, and the wooden deck-houses were mere heaps of splintered wood, while the bulwarks were in a perfectly ruinous condition. Clearly something must be done, and done quickly, or the Su-chen would be sunk beneath their feet.

Ordering his men to leave the four-inch for the time being, and to blaze away with the smaller pieces and machine-guns, Frobisher ran below to the magazine to try to discover what was wrong.He found the men there passing out shell and cartridge quite calmly, unaware that there was anything wrong on deck, and of course taking no precaution to examine the stuff before sending it up the hoist.

Frobisher’s first action when he got to the magazine was to examine the outside of the brass cases, and he soon saw—or thought he saw—what was the matter. When the Su-chen’s ammunition had been overhauled at Tien-tsin, cartridge for the four-inch was one of the sizes of which there was a shortage, and Frobisher had had a fresh supply put on board. That fresh supply, he had observed at the time, was stencilled with Chinese characters in red paint, while the old stock had been stencilled in black; and he now observed that all the cartridge being passed up carried the black stencil, and was therefore old stuff—how old he did not care to think. He at once told the men by signs not to send up any more black-marked cartridge, but to use only the red-marked; and then, for the second time that day, he received a shock.

The four-inch gun had been fired more frequently than any other gun, and the whole of the fresh supply of cartridge of that size had been exhausted.There was not a single charge left!How bitterly he blamed himself for not having hove every scrap of the ship’s old ammunition overboard, and filled up entirely with new!But it was no time for regrets now; the only thing to do was to rectify matters, if possible; and if not, to make the best of them.Perhaps it might be the primers that were faulty, he thought, and if so, the situation might yet be saved, for there was a supply of new primers on board.

Seizing one of the cases in his arms, he rushed on deck with his load, and there, under cover of one of the casemates, drew the load, exercising the utmost care, that the powder might not be exposed to any flying sparks.Then, springing to the gun, he thrust in the empty case, slammed the breech shut, and pressed the key.

There was a loud, smacking report, and a little thread of smoke curled up from the muzzle of the gun.The primers, then, were in good order, so—good heavens!—it must be the powder that was wrong, and Frobisher felt the beads of sweat gather on his forehead.He would make quite sure, though.

Running back to the casemate, he snatched a handful of powder, spread it thinly on deck, well away from the load, and placed a lighted match to it. There was no flame or puff of smoke, no explosion—nothing! The match simply burnt up and went out. Then the Su-chen’s captain took a pinch of the stuff between his fingers and put it in his mouth, tasting it. A moment later he spat it out on deck with a cry of horror and amazement, for what had passed for powder in all those old cartridges was nothing but granulated charcoal! Then Frobisher recollected Wong-lih’s accusation of peculation on the part of mandarins and other high officials who filled their pockets at the expense of their country, and how the admiral had said that it would be a bad thing for China if she had to go to war under conditions such as then obtained.

This, then, was one of the results of such peculation.Some contractor or official had been paid to provide powder, and he had provided charcoal, pocketing the difference.

Frobisher ground his teeth and muttered several very bitter things. Here he was, engaged with a vastly superior force, handicapped most horribly for want of ammunition—for possibly the rest of the supply, intended for the smaller guns, was in the same condition. What would have happened if he had not had the forethought to examine superficially the contents of the magazine at Tien-tsin, and order a fresh supply on his own responsibility, he hardly dared to think. There would undoubtedly have been not a single cartridge capable of being discharged, and the Su-chen and her crew would by this time undoubtedly have been the prize of the pirates. And all this that some pampered mandarin or contractor might have a supply of unearned money wherewith to buy luxuries that he neither deserved nor needed. It was disgraceful!

But there was nothing to be gained by repining, he reminded himself.Fortunately the cartridge for the smaller guns seemed to be holding out satisfactorily; and while Frobisher had been investigating the matter of the larger cartridge his men had made so good practice with them and their rifles that the third junk was already in a sinking condition.Even as he looked she disappeared like her consorts to the bottom, in a swirl of broken water, dotted with the forms of struggling pirates.

The one big gun being now useless, and the Su-chen herself in a very parlous condition, it was obviously out of the question to think of attempting to conclude the fight by means of the light guns and small-arms alone; the ship would not float long enough for that. Some other plan of action must therefore be adopted, and Frobisher gave his attention to the idea for a few minutes. Then he resolved upon a scheme which, though extremely hazardous, seemed to offer the best, if not the only, hope of success. It was a case of either destroying the pirates or being destroyed himself together with his crew; and of the two he naturally preferred that the sufferers should be the pirates. To explain his intentions it would be necessary, however, to call in the assistance of the interpreter, otherwise he could never hope to make the men comprehend exactly what was required—and his every hope of success hinged upon this.

He therefore went in search of Quen-lung, whom he eventually found, after a prolonged hunt, hiding, in an almost fainting condition, underneath the bunk in the first lieutenant’s cabin, and dragged him forcibly on deck.He was obliged to give the terrified man a stiff dose of raki to bring him to a condition to understand what was being said to him; then, the fellow finally coming in some degree to his senses, Frobisher explained to him the plan of campaign, and ordered him to translate it to the men.

There being now but two junks left, it was the Englishman’s intention to run the Su-chen up stream and in between them, firing as she went. Then boarding parties, headed respectively by himself and the first lieutenant, were to leap on to the decks of the junks, drive the crews overboard—not below—cut the cables, fire the vessels, and send them adrift down stream with the current. The Su-chen would then be free to turn her entire attention to the fort. She would anchor in the berth vacated by the junks, and endeavour to silence the fire of the fort with her remaining guns. If this could be done, a landing-party was to be thrown ashore who would carry with them a number of powder-bags for blowing in the gates; after which the idea was to enter the fort and carry it by storm. If the guns could not be entirely silenced, then as much damage as possible was to be done, and the assault was to be attempted in any case.

The men signified their comprehension of the plan with a cheer; then rifles were loaded, bayonets fixed, cartridge-pouches refilled, and cutlasses brought up from below and belted on. Frobisher gave the word, and the Su-chen went ahead at full speed for the junks. The men on the latter at once understood the move, and did their utmost to prevent it coming off, but all to no purpose. The gunboat crashed in between them, grapnels were hove aboard each junk, and the two parties of boarders, with Frobisher and the lieutenant at their head, scrambled up on the decks of the junks, where a desperate hand-to-hand struggle at once commenced.

The pirates, knowing that they could expect no mercy, showed none, and no quarter was given on either side.Frobisher, at the head of his men, strove to cut his way forward, driving the pirates ahead of him and overboard; but he soon realised that this was going to be an exceedingly difficult task.The desperadoes were splendidly armed, and seemed not to know the meaning of the word fear.Men found revolvers flashing in their very faces, and spoke no more in this world; the air scintillated with the gleam of whirling steel and vibrated with the hoarse shouts of the combatants and the cries of wounded men; while, to add to the horror and confusion of the scene, the guns of the fort opened fire murderously upon friend and foe alike.

Twice the pirates had given way slightly, but each time they had recovered their ground, and however many of them were killed, others seemed to appear from nowhere to take their places; and so the fight raged with unabated fury.Frobisher picked out a man who appeared to be one of the chiefs, and made herculean efforts to reach him; but time and again a whirlwind of men swept in between him and his prey, so that the fellow seemed unapproachable.

Then, suddenly, there arose a roar of exultation from the pirates, and, turning, Frobisher saw the other boarding party give way, and, seemingly struck with panic, go tumbling back on board the Su-chen, defeated.Frobisher, forgetting that he would not be understood, shouted to his men to redouble their efforts, and to those on the gunboat to go back and try again.

But there was worse to come. The Englishman was at the head of his men, plying his cutlass with terrible effect, when he felt a slight jar, and looked round just in time to see a man on board the Su-chen throw off the last grapnel, and the gunboat begin to gather sternway down the stream. He uttered a shout of rage, and strove to hew his way to the side of the junk; but even as he did so, he realised that he was too late. There were already fathoms of water between junk and steamer, and the bitter conclusion was forced home upon him that he had been deserted by his crew, and left alone with a mere handful of men in the midst of a crowd of howling, murderous pirates. The end of all things for him seemed very close at that moment.

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Chapter Twelve.

The Pathway of Glass.

Desperate as the situation undoubtedly was, Captain Frobisher was not the man to yield without a struggle. He was cornered, and he knew it. Nothing short of a miracle could extricate him from the position in which the momentary panic of the other boarding party had placed him by the withdrawal of the Su-chen; but he determined that, if he was to die, he would not die alone.

With this resolution, he renewed the fight with even greater desperation than before, if that were possible; and so formidable a foe did he become that, for a few seconds, the pirates in front of him wavered and all but broke.His tall, strong figure, as he advanced bareheaded, with set teeth and gleaming eyes, and that long ruddily-gleaming strip of steel which played here, there, and everywhere with the swiftness of light, made up a spectacle sufficiently awe-inspiring to terrify any man, one would have thought; but many of the pirates were themselves almost as big and strong as Frobisher, and were thoroughly accustomed to desperate, hand-to-hand fighting.Their hesitation was therefore but momentary, and the next instant they had closed round him like a pack of hungry wolves, snarling and spitting curses at him, and even striving to pull him down with their hands.

Gaining the opportunity of an instant’s breathing space, Frobisher glanced quickly behind him to discover how many of his men were left to him, and was horrified to find that, out of the forty men who had followed him on to the deck of the junk, but ten remained on their feet, while of those ten, fully half were bleeding from more or less severe wounds which would quickly put them hors de combatThere was therefore not the smallest possibility of cutting a way through the dense throng that surrounded them and leaping over the side into the water, as he had at first thought of doing; and there seemed nothing to be done but to sell his life and the lives of his followers as dearly as possible—for he was quite resolved to die rather than fall alive into the hands of the pirates, having already heard something of the tender mercies of the Chinese to their prisoners.

Unhappily for Frobisher, however, he was unable to control circumstance, and, not having eyes in the back of his head, he was unaware of what was happening behind him.He did not know that a few seconds later his followers were all cut down and slain, and that he remained fighting alone, without a single protector at his back, and with his enemies swarming all round him.Neither did he observe the chief, whom he had been trying to reach unsuccessfully ever since the beginning of the fight, made a brief signal to his men not to strike.

Consequently he was not a little astonished when he suddenly felt himself seized round the neck and body by half a dozen pairs of arms, which pinioned his own and left him helpless.In an instant his cutlass was wrenched from his grasp and he was hurled to the deck, where more men immediately flung themselves upon him, holding him firmly down, so that he found it utterly impossible to move a limb.

Thereafter the business of binding him was comparatively easy, and he presently found himself swathed from head to foot in coils of rope, until he resembled a mummy rather than a living man.

His captors then rolled him contemptuously out of the way against the shot-riddled bulwarks, and proceeded to take account of their casualties.Where Frobisher had made his final stand the dead lay thickest, and he noticed with grim satisfaction that there were very few wounded men to be seen.His men and he had fought well, and he had nothing with which to reproach himself.The pirate chief scowled heavily as he scanned the result of the fight; but although he had unquestionably paid dearly in men for his victory, he had no compunction in ordering the more severely wounded to be hove over the side.Probably there were no facilities for doctoring them, and the chief perhaps thought they might as well die now as later on, and so save him a good deal of trouble in transporting them to the shore.

Just then the other junk bumped heavily alongside, and her men came aboard, reporting that their craft had been so badly damaged that she was in a sinking condition.Indeed her crew had hardly transferred themselves before she disappeared beneath the muddy waters.

The fourth junk safely accounted for, Frobisher comforted himself with the assurance that, with any sort of luck at all, the Su-chen ought to be able to make her way back to Tien-tsin, short-handed though she must undoubtedly be; and, once there, he knew a report of the failure of the expedition would be speedily carried to Wong-lih, provided the admiral happened to be still there. The latter would then be quite certain to send a rescue expedition up the Hoang-ho to recover any prisoners the pirates might have taken, or to avenge them if slain. Happily for the Englishman’s peace of mind, he did not know that, although the Su-chen did eventually reach Tien-tsin in safety, she arrived too late to catch the admiral, who had left to visit some of the Southern Chinese ports and inspect the men-of-war on that station, and was not expected back, unless specially sent for, for at least a couple of months. And it was certain that none of the Chinese officials at Tien-tsin would consider the fact of Frobisher’s capture and probable murder at the hands of the pirates as sufficient to justify the exertion of dispatching a messenger to recall Wong-lih, or even to give him news of the result of the expedition. So, although he did not know it, there was little prospect of rescue for Murray Frobisher, for some time, at all events.

The business of disposing of the dead and badly wounded men having been completed, the pirate chief, whose name—from the number of times the word was used when he was being addressed—Frobisher guessed to be Ah-fu, issued a few brief orders in barbarous-sounding, up-country Chinese; and the survivors of the fight got up the anchor, and slowly poled the junk back to her berth behind the small headland where the fleet had been lying on the arrival of the Su-chenObserving that, in his bound condition, nobody seemed to consider it necessary to stand on guard over him, and being anxious to learn as much as possible respecting his present surroundings—with a view to future escape if he were left alive long enough—Frobisher contrived to bring himself into a kneeling position, after which he had not much difficulty in struggling to his feet, and was thus able to look over the side and see what was going on.

By the time that he had executed this manoeuvre the junk had left the main stream of the river and had entered the bight where the pirate fleet was accustomed to be concealed; and, at the far end of this, about a quarter of a mile from their present position, Frobisher distinguished a small wharf, some two hundred feet in length by about thirty wide, and standing about eight feet out of the water, toward which the junk was being steered.This was no doubt the jetty where the pirates unloaded the loot stolen from captured prizes, and whence they took aboard their own stores of ammunition, provisions, and water.There was quite a number of bamboo and thatch huts scattered about at the shore end of the jetty—evidently store-houses—while a stream of flashing, sparkling, crystal-clear water, tumbling down a narrow gully and cutting a tiny channel for itself across the sand to the river, was without doubt the source of the pirates’ water supply.

Frobisher noticed that at the end of the jetty a number of the men from the fort had collected, apparently awaiting the arrival of their comrades of the maritime department; and as the junk came alongside, these individuals clambered aboard, and a vociferous conversation ensued, during which fierce glances and threatening gestures were directed toward the Englishman, who knew instinctively that the new arrivals were strongly urging that he should be put to death, as some sort of a sacrifice to the memory of the dead pirates, in whose destruction he had played so large a part.Indeed, it seemed at one moment as though he were to be slaughtered as he stood there, bound and helpless; for the new-comers surged forward, knives and swords gleaming in their hands, pushing the junk’s crew backward until the whole crowd had gathered in a circle, with Frobisher in the centre.Frobisher expected death at any moment, and he was at a loss to understand why the junk’s men seemed reluctant to let the others have their way, seeing that they themselves had been eager enough to put an end to him but a short time previously.Presently he noticed that Ah-fu had disappeared from the deck, and guessed that the men were merely waiting for him to return before allowing the people from the fort to have their way.

Presently the pirate chief reappeared, and was immediately surrounded by an eager, gesticulating crowd, who pointed to Frobisher and handled their blades in sanguinary anticipation.But, holding up his hand for silence, Ah-fu said a few words to his followers which produced an immediate and remarkable effect.Sheathing their weapons, they broke out into shouts of laughter, and began to discuss with one another the details of what they evidently considered an excellent joke; and Frobisher, knowing something of the Chinese pirates’ idea of amusement, felt that he would infinitely have preferred being killed on the spot to being kept alive to provide sport for these barbarians.Quen-lung had certainly been right when he had prophesied disaster as the result of attacking the “Unconquerable”—as Frobisher afterwards found was indeed the name of the sect to which the pirates belonged—although what reason the man had had for being so sure, the young Englishman was utterly unable to guess.

The matter having evidently been settled entirely to the pirates’ satisfaction, Frobisher’s legs were unbound, so that he could walk, and, closely guarded by two men carrying long, broad-bladed knives, he was led down the sloping gangway to the wharf, followed by the rest of the crowd talking and laughing hilariously.Thence he was taken up the hill, a distance of a quarter of a mile, to the fort.

On reaching his destination he was amazed to note the enormous strength of the building, and the consequently small amount of damage that had been done by the fire of the gunboat. With the exception of the hole in the tower, and a few splintered and starred “splashings” where the missiles had struck, very little actual injury seemed to have been inflicted, notwithstanding the excellent practice of the Su-chen’s gunners. The walls, he decided, must be enormously thick, thicker even than those of the fortress of Asan, which were stout enough to withstand anything less than heavy gun fire.

He was not permitted to examine the appearance of the building very closely, for, observing his hesitation, the two guards prodded him vindictively with the points of their knives, and pushed him before them through the massive stone gateway, which was protected by a strong portcullis at either end, as well as an iron double door between, strong enough to turn rifle bullets.Frobisher now realised that even if he had succeeded in sinking all the junks and reaching the gate of the fort his difficulties would only have begun, and that his plan of blowing in the gates with powder would have been completely frustrated by the existence of the outer portcullis.These men certainly knew how to protect themselves, and were determined not to be captured if human ingenuity could prevent it.

Once inside, Frobisher found himself in a spacious courtyard, round which the fort was built.The windows of the different chambers looked inward, thus allowing the outer walls to be entirely used for gun embrasures, rifle loopholes, and even arrow-slits, so varied were the weapons to be found in this robber stronghold.

Still in charge of the two guards, at a command from Ah-fu the prisoner was marched through a doorway in the wall exactly opposite the main gateway, and was hurried through corridor after corridor—all of them only dimly lighted by small openings in the outer wall—until he became utterly confused and lost even the remotest idea of his bearings.After a walk of about five minutes the guards halted before an iron-bound door, which, upon being opened, disclosed a flight of steps.Down these steps he was hurried, finding himself, when at the bottom, at the entrance to another long passage, which looked as though it had been hewn out of the solid sandstone, for there were no joints visible in its walls.

Removing a lantern from a hook, one of the men lighted it, and the journey was continued for quite ten minutes in a perfectly straight line, thus confirming Frobisher’s impression that he was in an underground passage leading from the fort to some other structure at a considerable distance, probably constructed to afford a means of escape in the extremely unlikely event of the fort ever being captured.At the far end of this passage there were several iron-bound doors—a circumstance which Frobisher noted for future reference; and it was through one of the middle ones that he was conducted, arriving at once at the foot of another flight of stairs, similar to those at the other end, and finally at a large, square, stone cell, lighted on three sides by very small windows, high up in the walls—a most dismal-looking prison.There was a low plank bench covered with straw and presumably intended for a bed, two stools, and a bucket, these few articles constituting the entire contents of the chamber.

Frobisher’s arms were now unbound, and he was thrust inside, the guards holding themselves in readiness to frustrate any attempt at escape.But the prisoner was by this time far too stiff and numb after the constriction of the ropes to make any such attempt; it was as much as he could achieve to stagger to the apology for a bed, upon which he flung himself at full length.He was utterly exhausted, and his body had scarcely touched the straw before he was fast asleep, in which condition he remained for nearly twenty-four hours.

When he awoke he found that a coarse meal had been left for him, while the bucket had been filled with water; so he made a hearty meal, and then proceeded to examine his cell by the light of the declining sun.His search, however, was fruitless: there was nothing out of which he might construct a key, as he had done at Asan; the windows were scarcely six inches square; in short, escape appeared an impossibility.

And now many days dragged out their slow length in dreary monotony; day after day his custodians brought him a supply of food; but, strangely enough, the time passed without his being subjected to indignity and torment for the amusement of the pirates, as he had fully expected might be the case.Possibly they were absent on some foray, and had postponed their entertainment until their return.Whatever might be the reason, however, the days slid past, without molestation to him, and lengthened into weeks, until, by the notches which he scored every morning on the edge of his bed, Frobisher found that he had been just thirteen weeks in confinement.Thirteen weeks!—And, so far as he could tell, no attempt had been made by the Chinese authorities to rescue him or obtain his release; at any rate, there had been no sounds of fighting, no report of guns from the river; and he was being slowly forced to the conclusion that his very existence had been forgotten, or else that it was thought not worth while to throw away any more valuable Chinese lives in order to effect the rescue of so unimportant a personage as an English mercenary.

Then, one morning, when Frobisher awoke and commenced to dress—for he had made a practice of undressing at night, that he might feel the cleaner and more refreshed next day—he discovered, to his astonishment, that his boots had mysteriously disappeared during the night.He searched everywhere for them, but they were nowhere to be found.For whatever reason—and he puzzled himself to think of a satisfactory one—his foot-gear was undoubtedly missing, and there was an end of the matter.The curious happening vexed him considerably.It seemed such an idiotic trick to play; and the more he thought about the matter the more convinced he became that this joke, or whatever it was intended to be, had a deeper significance than he had at first imagined.

Since his arrival in China he had contrived to acquire a fragmentary knowledge of the language, and by its means he endeavoured to ascertain from the man who nightly brought him food the reason for the apparently senseless prank; but the fellow either could not or would not understand, and Frobisher was obliged to give up the attempt.

The jailer had hitherto been in the habit of closing the iron-bound door behind him with a slam, rattling the lock after him to make sure that it was fastened, when he brought the prisoner’s food; and this circumstance had come to be so expected by Frobisher that when, on the evening of the day on which his boots had disappeared, the man simply pulled the door to gently behind him and went off about his business without even trying the lock, the omission immediately attracted the Englishman’s attention.

The man had never before been so careless, and Frobisher could not decide whether he had been thinking of something else at the moment, and had succumbed to an attack of absent-mindedness, or whether he had suddenly recollected something that he had forgotten, and intended to pay another visit to the cell.Whichever it might be, Frobisher believed he saw in the circumstance a possibility of escape of which he instantly determined to avail himself.

With stealthy footsteps he crept across the stone-flagged floor, scarcely daring to breathe lest his movements should attract some inconvenient person’s attention.He had, it is true, heard the jailer walk away down the corridor; but perhaps, playing some stupid joke, the man had crept back noiselessly, and was even now outside the door, listening and chuckling to himself at the prisoner’s foolishness in imagining that he would be careless enough to go away leaving the door unfastened.The mere idea caused the beads of sweat to start out on Frobisher’s forehead; disappointment would be too terrible!

But he swiftly pulled himself together, and, with fingers that trembled in spite of himself, he touched the old-fashioned latch and slowly, very slowly, raised it, pulling the door gently toward him as he did so.

The door opened, and, scarcely daring to credit his senses, Frobisher pulled it still wider open, and a moment later was able to look out into the corridor.There was an antiquated oil lantern hanging at the foot of the stone stairway, placed there for the jailer’s convenience, and by its light the prisoner was able to see that the corridor was empty.Then the incident of the door was no trick, after all, and the man had really suffered a lapse of memory.Twenty-four hours would elapse before he returned, and Frobisher’s absence was discovered, and the latter hoped by that time to be far away, if he could but find some mode of escaping undetected from the building.The first and most serious obstacle in the way, the cell door, was overcome; now to find whether his luck would still hold, and if he could find another unguarded gate leading to freedom.

First of all, however, he must have some covering for his feet.He knew that he could not walk far barefooted over rough ground; and, if pursued under such circumstances, capture would be certain and speedy.He therefore removed his shirt and undervest, and tearing them into strips, he swathed the wrappings round his feet somewhat after the manner followed by the Spanish mountaineers.This done, he next had to ascertain whether the remaining doors between himself and freedom were locked or unlocked.

The first door he came to was the one at the foot of the stairs, and, as might have been expected, this was closed; but it was not locked.The pirates had clearly pinned their faith on the stanchness of the cell door.Close to this, in the opposite wall of the passage, were the other doors which Frobisher had observed when being conducted to his prison; and it was through one of these that he must pass if he was to escape at all.The passage itself, he remembered, simply communicated with the main building of the fort, and to travel by that path was tantamount to running into the arms of his captors.

With infinite care he tried the latch of the door on the left.It was locked.

Then he turned the handle of the door on the right.That also was locked; and his heart sank at the thought of the tremendous amount of labour that would be needed to overcome this obstacle—if it were possible to overcome it at all, of which he was more than doubtful.

While he was considering what to do first, his eye caught a faint glimmer of light shining on something on the wall, and he eagerly stretched out his hand to it.As he touched it his heart leaped, for the object was a key—obviously the key of one, or both, of the doors.

He fitted it cautiously into the lock of the right-hand door and turned it gently, and with a soft click the wards fell back and the door jarred slightly open.

Without wasting a moment, Frobisher pulled it wide and stepped outside, exulting in his new-found liberty.But, alas!his exultation was only momentary.An instant later he realised the cruel hoax that had been played on him, for extending over a distance of many yards in every direction was a sort of pavement of broken glass, pointed and keen-edged as a forest of razors.The glass had been so firmly fixed in the ground that it was impossible to remove it; and Frobisher instantly realised that his escape that way was most effectually barred.Even with strong boots on, it would have been a difficult enough matter to traverse that glass-strewn patch without cutting one’s feet to pieces; and with feet merely protected by thin wrappings of wool and linen, the thing was an impossibility.

This, then, was the meaning of the removal of his boots; and, as he realised the sardonic cruelty of the men who could invent such a device for tormenting a prisoner, his heart almost failed him.It seemed as though he were doomed to remain for ever immured in this horrible place.

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Chapter Thirteen.

Pursued by Bloodhounds.

With a smothered ejaculation of bitter disappointment Frobisher recoiled a few steps in sheer despair, bringing up rather sharply against the iron-plated door through which he had just emerged; and the next instant he realised that he was doubly trapped. Escape was cut off in front of him by that broken glass, and he had been in such haste to get away from his prison that he had never thought of removing the key from the inside of the door, or of taking precautions to prevent the door from closing behind him and cutting off his retreat, as it had done.

Retreat, after he was once clear of the walls, had naturally never entered his mind.But now he would have been glad enough to have been able to return to his cell unobserved.It would be intensely humiliating to be obliged to wait there, in the small space between the door and the glass-sown path, until his jailer arrived, some twenty-four hours later, to release him.Yet there seemed to be no alternative.

How careless, how criminally foolish he had been to allow himself to be trapped by so transparent a device!thought Frobisher.He ought to have suspected a trap directly he discovered that his boots had been removed, and he might have known that such jailers as he was dealing with do not leave cell doors unlatched by accident, or leave keys to open other doors hanging on walls in conspicuous places, just where an escaping prisoner would be most likely to see them.How those pirates would laugh and jeer at him on the morrow, when they arrived and found him there, shivering with the bitter cold of night in that climate, at that time of year!The mere thought of such humiliation caused Frobisher to grit his teeth with anger, and he had almost made up his mind to chance a quick dash across that cruel barrier, trusting that he would not injure himself so severely as to make escape absolutely impossible, when something occurred which caused him quickly to change his mind, and made him shrink back into the shadow of the door, pressing himself up into one of the corners, to avoid observation and consequent discovery, if possible.

He had caught sight of the figure of a Chinaman emerging from the shadow of the jungle which surrounded the fort on its landward side.The man’s figure stood out plain and clear-cut in the moonlight, which was so bright that Frobisher could easily distinguish his every movement, could even see how the man was dressed; and he wondered what the fellow could be doing there at that time of night.

In that part of northern China, especially at that season, men do not wander about in the jungle at night, or indeed at any other time, if they can help it, having a very natural objection to being caught and eaten by prowling, hungry tigers; and it was therefore not a little strange that this man should arrive at the fort by that way, particularly as it could be reached much more easily by the road which the pirates had constructed for their own convenience.It would almost appear as though the man bad come by this route in order to avoid the pirates’ observation; and the longer Frobisher considered the matter, the more certain did he become that this was actually the case, and the more he wondered what the reason might be.

The man had only stood in full view for a few brief seconds, just long enough to convince the Englishman that he was real, and not a figment of his own heated imagination.Then he had stepped back quickly into the shadow of the jungle, crouching down beside a clump of bamboo, where he was so well concealed from observation that Frobisher could just distinguish the outline of his stooping body.Indeed, had he not kept his eyes on the man the whole time, it would have been impossible to detect his hiding-place, so well did the colour of his clothing blend with the vegetation which formed his background.

The Englishman’s heart began to beat with excitement and hope, for a thousand possibilities at once presented themselves to him.It was morally certain that the hiding man could have no connection with the pirates, or he would have come forward boldly and demanded admittance; and if not a friend of, or connected with the outlaws, he must necessarily be opposed to them.Ah!if it were only possible to attract the man’s attention without also attracting that of the pirates, escape should be a simple matter, thought Frobisher.He was already practically as good as outside the walls, and all that was necessary was that something should be laid down on the top of the glass over which he could walk without cutting his feet, and the thing was done; he could be miles beyond the possibility of pursuit before morning broke, if only the preliminaries could be put in hand immediately.

It did not take him long to decide that he would make the attempt to attract the man’s attention.If the latter were a friend, and the attempt were crowned with success, all would be well, and he would be free within an hour; while if the man should after all prove to be an enemy—well, he might as well be discovered and taken back to prison now, as wait all night in the cold.One thing was quite certain—without outside assistance escape was impossible; so he decided to put his fortune to the test and risk his freedom, if not his life, upon the turn of the die.

With this idea, he drew his handkerchief from his pocket and was about to step forward and wave it, when he saw a movement among the clump of bamboo, and the next instant the Chinaman rose to his feet and ran like a deer toward the very part of the fort in which Frobisher’s cell was situated.He ran noiselessly, on his toes, and bent almost double in the effort to make himself as small as possible.And he did not slacken speed until he had reached the walls of the fort, where he again crouched down in the shadow, almost directly under the window of Frobisher’s cell, about twenty yards away from the spot where the Englishman himself was concealed.

The latter, in the face of this new move, determined to watch a few minutes longer before revealing himself, and kept his eyes on the crouching figure with the greatest interest.Was the man going to prove friend or foe, rescuer or would-be assassin?Scarcely the latter, the Englishman thought, for there seemed something strangely familiar in the man’s movements and in his whole appearance; and Frobisher experienced the sensation of having met, or seen, this man somewhere before, though under what circumstances he could not for the life of him recall.He was something of the same build as Ling; but Ling, he knew, was dead, for he had seen the man’s body.Then, again, he might pass at a distance for Quen-lung, the interpreter; but from what Frobisher had already seen of that person, he did not for a moment believe that Quen-lung was at all the kind of man to risk his skin on a midnight excursion to a pirate stronghold.

Suddenly Frobisher’s attention was disturbed by the sound of a very low whistle, undoubtedly proceeding from the Chinaman.That whistle was beyond question a signal of some sort, and was just as certainly intended for himself.To hesitate longer would have been the height of folly, for the longer the delay now, the greater would be the danger of discovery; so, putting his fingers in his mouth, Frobisher replied with another whistle in exactly the same key and tone as the Chinaman’s.The latter leapt to his feet, took a few steps backward, and looked up at the window; but seeing nothing there, he proceeded to glance round him anxiously.

Frobisher gave another low whistle, and, as the man now turned his head in his direction, fluttered the white handkerchief.The Chinaman instantly caught sight of the movement, and commenced to run toward the prisoner, coming to a sudden standstill as he encountered the outer edge of the carpet of broken glass.A low exclamation of “Phew!”escaped him as he understood the meaning of the obstacle, followed by a subdued execration in English; and on hearing this, Frobisher at once knew who it was that was risking his life in an endeavour to save him.The man was none other than Captain Drake!

How the little skipper had come to hear of his friend’s predicament, and how he had contrived to travel some three hundred miles in disguise undetected, Frobisher could not guess.All he knew was that at last he had again a stanch comrade by his side—one who would not forsake him, even in the last extremity; and in his relief he could scarcely help shouting aloud for very joy.But fortunately he remembered in time the absolute necessity for strict silence, and contented himself with calling in a low voice:

“That’s you, Drake, surely?”

“It is that same,” responded the little man, in a tone as subdued as Frobisher’s own; “but where the dickens are you?I saw something move just now, but I’m hanged if I can see a thing now.”

“I’m here, just beside this door,” replied Frobisher.“I should have been away an hour ago, if it had not been for this confounded glass.”

“But couldn’t you manage to get across, if you take it coolly and walk slowly?”whispered Drake.“If you plant your feet carefully and balance yourself well before each step, you ought to be able to do it.But watch you don’t slip; that’s where the danger comes in.”

“D’ye think I should not have done that long ago, skipper, if it had been possible?”Frobisher whispered.“The thing is impossible, because they have taken away my boots, and the thin wrappings I have round my feet would be cut to ribbons in half a dozen steps.”

“I might have known,” replied Drake.“That’s an old game of theirs.Well, you must be got across somehow, that’s clear, and quickly.There’s nobody on guard up above us as yet, but there’s no knowing when they may take it into their heads to post a sentry.H’m!”pulling at one of the pieces of glass, “the stuff’s stuck in too securely to move, so it’s no use thinking of trying to get over the difficulty that way.And there’s neither time nor opportunity to collect anything to lay down on top of it.There’s only one way that I can see, and so let’s try it.”

Without waiting for Frobisher to ask his plan, the little man commenced the dangerous voyage across the pavement of glass.He had a thick stick in his hand, and Frobisher saw that he was wearing thick, wooden-soled Chinese boots.Thus provided, Drake succeeded in making the journey in safety, and in a few minutes stood unharmed by his friend’s side, shaking his hand as though he meant to pull his arm from its socket.

“I’m glad, glad indeed to see you again, laddie,” he murmured heartily; “and more than glad to see that those yellow-skinned pirates have not deprived you of any of your limbs.That is quite a common trick among the Chinks.”

“And,” returned Frobisher heartily, “I don’t think I need tell you how glad I am to see you again.But how did you get to know I was here?I understood from the admiral at Tien-tsin that you had gone to England for a cargo of arms and ammunition for the Chinese Government.”

“So I did,” replied Drake; “and I carried out my contract, too.I’ve only been back in China a couple of weeks.But we must not stay here yarning; this is much too dangerous a place to be swapping experiences in.These will keep until later, when we are out of this mess.”

“That’s so,” agreed Frobisher.“But the question is, how are we to get away?You saw for yourself what a ticklish matter it is to cross that glass, even with stout boots on your feet and with the assistance of a thick stick to help you to keep your balance; and upon my word I fail to see how I am going to manage the business.You don’t propose to carry me, I take it?”he concluded, chuckling, and giving the little man a sly dig in the ribs.

“I would even try that, and succeed too, perhaps,” was Drake’s reply, “if there was no other way out.But we can do better than that.I thought of a scheme directly I came to the edge of the glass-sown patch and understood the game that the Chinks had been playing off upon you, but I wasn’t such a born fool as to stand there and shout it across to you, with the chance that some yellow-skin might be up aloft there and hear me.Besides, I wanted to see for myself whether or not the scheme would work.And it has, for here I am, safe and sound, and not a penny the worse for the passage.

“Now, here it is, just as simple as ABC.You are a thundering big chap, I know, while I’m a little ’un; but I noticed long ago that your boots and mine are pretty much of a size, while these that I’m wearing now are a bit big for me, though they’re the best I could get hold of.I just slip these boots off, and you slip ’em on; then, with the help of this stick, you make the passage of the glass, same as I’ve done, while I stand here to watch you do it, and at the same time keep a look-out.Then, as soon as you’re across, you chuck me back the boots and the stick, one at a time, and I’ll catch ’em—I haven’t been a cricketer all these years for nothing.The rest’ll be all plain sailing, and I’ll be alongside you on the right side of the glass in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.Savez?”

“Excellent!”returned Frobisher in a whisper; “and, as you say, perfectly simple.Only, you must go first.You surely do not suppose that I am going to make good my escape, leaving you here to run the risk of being taken in my stead—”

Drake kicked off his shoes, with a muttered sailor’s blessing on Frobisher’s head at what he termed the latter’s “tomfoolery”, and, going down upon one knee, seized first one and then the other of Frobisher’s feet, removed the bandages from them, and then thrust on the boots.

“Capital fit!”he murmured, as he rose to his feet and put the stick into his companion’s hand.“Now, off you go, my buck, and look sharp about it, or the pirates will have two prisoners to amuse themselves with instead of one.”

Recognising that the little skipper was determined to have his own way, Frobisher forbore to protest further.He stepped carefully out upon the broad area of broken glass, and, creeping along close under the wall, was able so effectually to steady himself by it and with the help of the stick that in a few minutes he had safely negotiated the passage which a short time before had appeared practically impassable.Then, running far enough round the outer margin of the glass-sown ground to secure a clear shot in through the doorway, he threw back to Drake first one boot, then the other, and finally the stick, and had the satisfaction of seeing his friend deftly catch each of them.Five minutes later the little skipper was safely beside him.

“Thank God we are both out of that hole!”piously ejaculated Frobisher under his breath, as the pair crept along in the deep shadow of the rear wall of the fort.“Where away to now?”

“Into the jungle first, where we can’t be seen by any chance look-out up aloft,” answered Drake.“Then, as soon as we are safely hidden, I’ll explain.”

They made the passage across the open and reached the cover of the jungle in safety, whereupon Drake replaced his boots, while Frobisher swathed his feet again in the strips of underclothing which he had brought away with him.These were serviceable enough as foot-gear, and Frobisher found that they protected his feet much better than he had anticipated, lasting quite a long time before needing to be replaced by other strips.

Having readjusted their clothing, the two men were ready to begin their long and perilous journey back to civilisation, which Drake gave his companion to understand would have to be made overland.But before starting, Frobisher requested Drake to cut him a heavy cudgel, similar to the one he himself was using, so that, in the event of their encountering an enemy, they might have something, at least, to defend themselves with.Drake did so, and, as he handed it to his friend, plunged his hand into one of his pockets and brought out something which he also passed over to Frobisher.

“Why,” exclaimed the latter in astonishment, “that’s one of my own brace of revolvers!How in the name of fortune did you get hold of it?”

“And here’s the other,” said Drake, showing the butt. “I got them out of your cabin aboard the Su-chen—she got back safely to Tien-tsin, I may tell you; but how I came to be aboard her, or to get up here, is too long a yarn to spin now.Let it wait until we are in less danger than we are in at present.”

“Right you are, skipper!”answered Frobisher; “the yarn will be interesting enough, I’ll be bound.I’m glad you found these revolvers and brought them along, for they are good barkers, and a man feels a certain sense of security with one of them in his hand.Now, lead the way, since you probably know it best.”

Drake took a comprehensive glance at the stars, and then plunged along a narrow and apparently seldom-trodden path through the jungle, seeming to find his way by instinct, for the forest was so dense that the moon’s rays seldom succeeded in penetrating it.

They had been jogging along at a steady four miles an hour for about an hour and a half, when the fugitives were startled by hearing the distant boom of a heavy gun, proceeding apparently from the spot which they had recently left.They at once guessed what it meant, and realised the danger in which they still stood.Evidently Frobisher’s escape had somehow been prematurely discovered, and that gun had been fired as an alarm.Instead of having, as they had confidently anticipated, about eighteen or twenty hours in which to make a good start, they had gained but an hour and a half; and the pirates would be already on their track.True, it might take them some time to discover in which direction the fugitives had headed; but they would assuredly make the discovery sooner or later, and then it would be purely a question of speed.

“By Jove, Drake!”exclaimed Frobisher, “we must hurry now.Those fellows have discovered my absence; and they will lose no time in taking up the pursuit, you may depend.Do you know of any hiding-place that we can make for?”

“I thought of just this thing on my way here,” answered Drake, breaking into a run, “and picked out a spot which will suit us to a T, if we can but reach it in time.It’s an old ruined town, goodness knows how ancient; nobody lives there now, and there are thousands of ruined houses and plenty of underground passages where we can hide, if we can only get there unseen.”

Breath being precious, the pair wasted no more in talk, but saved it all for the long run before them.Side by side they dashed along at top speed, sometimes colliding with trees, or stumbling over stones and creepers, until they were bruised from head to foot, but never once halting.

When they were beginning to hope that they might be out-distancing the pursuit, a deep, bell-like note floating down the wind warned them that the pirates possessed bloodhounds, and that the dogs were hard upon their trail.Frobisher took out his revolver and spun the cylinder to satisfy himself that it was loaded, and then thrust it back into his pocket.If those dogs came within shot, he would take care that they hunted no more prisoners.

“How far ahead now?”he panted, when they had been running for another half-hour at top speed.

“About five miles,” grunted Drake, who was feeling the strain even more than Frobisher.“We should be there in about half an hour at this pace—if we can keep it up.Hope I shall be able to hold out.I’m not in such good form as I once was.Getting old, too.If I can’t keep up, you push on, lad; and I’ll try to keep ’em back with my pistol.”

“Likely, isn’t it?”replied Frobisher ironically.“If you can’t hold out, of course I shall stay and face it out with you: but do all you can; we must not give in at the last moment.”

On and on they plunged, and at last they began to find the jungle thinning out, so that the going was a little easier, and their pace consequently increased; but they could tell by the frequent, deep-throated baying that the dogs were gaining on them steadily.They dashed out of the forest altogether at last; and away in front of them, on the right bank of the mighty Hoang-ho, its houses gleaming spectrally in the moonlight, stood the ruined city that Drake had referred to, not more than two miles distant—a very haven of refuge, as Frobisher could easily imagine, if they could but reach it; for it was of considerable extent, and, once lost in its labyrinthine streets or underground passages, the pirates might search for them in vain.

They had not heard the dogs for some minutes, and, hoping that the pursuit had perhaps been abandoned, Frobisher glanced round.It was well that he did so.The dogs had also left the forest, and, seeing their prey in front of them, were running in silence.They were not more than fifty yards distant, and, grasping his revolver, Frobisher called to Drake, and together the two men turned to face the beasts.

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