Mr. Midshipman Glover, R.N.: A Tale of the Royal Navy of To-day

"The Imperial Chinese Ship Laird,

Singapore, 14th December

DEAR MR. PING SANG,

My last letter reporting the proceedings of my squadron was written from Colombo on my arrival.I left that harbour on the morning of December 2, and proceeded to sea at easy speed, leaving destroyer 'No.1' to await the arrival of the two Patagonian destroyers left behind at Aden, and destroyer 'No.2' to keep touch with the third destroyer if she attempted to leave harbour within twenty-four hours of my departure.

They both rejoined me on 5th December at full speed, and reported the arrival of the two destroyers six hours after I had left, and that they made no immediate preparations for sea. After recoaling 'No. 1' and 'No. 2' from the Sylvia store-ship, a process which occupied seven or eight hours on account of a strong breeze and a slight sea, I proceeded at thirteen knots, and reached Singapore without further incident, anchoring in the outer harbour.

Here I was met by a collier, chartered in Cardiff under sealed orders, and am at present completing the coaling of my squadron.

I have determined, after the incidents of the dynamite cartridges on the way out to Gibraltar and again at Malta, to take no more coal from shore, and have arranged for a collier to meet me at Hong-Kong.Our men will alone handle the coal, so there shall be no further chance of foul play.

The man Hopkins is still under close arrest, and I consider that this course will be more conducive to the safety of the expedition than handing him over to the civil authorities, with my proofs of his complicity not yet substantiated.The fact also that he is an American citizen would open up many legal difficulties, and after the lengthy diplomatic representations as a result of Parker's opening fire on the Patagonian, it is advisable to steer clear of these shoals in future.

This morning I received a wire from Colombo informing me that the Patagonians had not yet left, and that one was still undergoing repairs.

I shall leave to-morrow, and, as the monsoon is fairly strong, I have dismounted the guns and the search-lights of all three destroyers to lighten them as far as possible.

The mail is just leaving, and by the time you receive this letter I shall be slowly punching my way against the monsoon.I hope to be in Hong-Kong not later than the 22nd.

Both Dr. Fox and I shall be very glad to renew our acquaintance with you there, and to talk of old times and adventures when we all three were much younger.

C.H.HELSTON."

Ping Sang was small of stature and plump to a degree.He lay indolently back in his luxurious, crimson-upholstered chair, resting his podgy feet on a richly embroidered footstool.

His jolly, oily face was wreathed in smiles, and he blew great clouds of smoke from between his fat lips as he slowly read this letter, his little eyes twinkling with humour and with appreciation of his own well-being and prosperity.

His fat little hands had short stumpy fingers, beautifully manicured and covered with rings, which glistened and twinkled as he raised a dainty Venetian glass to his lips.He was dressed in dark claret-coloured silk robes, with pantaloons of light green, held together with gold knob buttons and gold braid loops, and was undoubtedly a prosperous gentleman and a dandy to boot.

On the opposite side of the fire, sitting bolt upright in an attitude of keen nervous alertness, was Ho Ming himself, a tall, gaunt Manchu, whose long thin fingers, with their prominent tendons, clenched rather than grasped the carved arms of his chair.His light-blue silk over-garment hardly concealed his attenuated figure, and his face was as gaunt as his body, with thin, tightly drawn lips, deeply recessed eyes, and prominent hooked nose.

Between them and behind a carved black wood table, supported by black wood dragons, sat A Tsi, Ho Ming's comprador, almost hidden by the clouds of tobacco smoke circling round him in the dull light of an ancient bronze lantern which swung from the ceiling, and contained a cunningly concealed electric light.He was dressed solemnly in black silk, relieved only by gilt buttons.It was this man who for the last ten days had been searching for any traces of the Pirate Syndicate's intentions, and with several Cantonese sailors selected from his master's vessels had mixed, both on board their ships and in the opium dens and lodging-houses ashore, with all the floating population of Hong-Kong.

"Helston and his ships should be here in a couple of days," said Ping Sang, speaking in Chinese and handing the letter to the anxious Ho Ming; "everything is all right so far."

"Now, Tsi, tell us again what you have been able to discover."

"Nothing, sir, beyond what I have already reported.There are two large junks from Amoy at the Aberdeen Dock, whose crews are strangers to Hong-Kong.Two days before their arrival an Englishman arrived by a coasting steamer which had picked him up at Amoy, and he is now staying at the Victoria Hotel, and one of my men has seen him go on board these junks.From what I can find out, they have a much larger crew than is customary."

"It is very unusual for junks to come down here from Amoy," interposed Ho Ming, glancing keenly from one to the other, and hardly able to restrain his impatience at Sang's apparent indifference or his comprador's stolidity."Those junks are probably full of explosives, and it would be an easy thing to float them up against any of Helston's ships in the harbour and blow them up.We must do something—we must!Why, the ships may be here any time!"

"My dear Ming," smiled Ping Sang, waving a fat deprecating finger and settling himself more comfortably in his chair, "we must not excite ourselves—that's the only thing we can do at present.We've not the faintest reason for suspecting either the Englishman or his junks; still, we may be able to do some little thing."

"I think it might be wise, just for the sake of curiosity, to burn those junks."

"But think of the law—English law; we are not in China now.('Thank goodness', or the equivalent in Chinese, piously muttered the comprador).We can't bribe the magistrates here; and think of the risk and the punishment."

"Well, well," continued Ping Sang soothingly, "we won't do it to-night.To-morrow I'll try and get a look at this Englishman—I may know him and he may know me.Have you seen him yourself, Tsi?"he asked."Is there anything peculiar about him?"

"No, sir; but the man who saw him go aboard at Aberdeen says he limped badly," answered A Tsi.

"A limp had he?Well, I rather fancy I shall know him, and I rather fancy he would know me," drawled Ping Sang, "though I'll take good care he doesn't recognize me!"

*      *      *      *      *

On each side of the entrance to the Victoria Hotel is generally a motley row of coolies squatting at the edge of the pavement with their mat trays containing sweetmeats, matches, or sugar-canes for sale among the rickshaw men who come and go.Among these, next morning, was a fat old man in a dirty pair of blue trousers, with a dirty blue tunic tied round his naked shoulders, clamouring for purchasers as he fanned a swarm of flies off his sugar-canes with his broad mat hat.This was Ping Sang, and all the while he kept his eyes glued on the hotel entrance.He had bribed a coolie to give him his place for the day, and there he squatted in this extremely uncomfortable position.Sportsman as he was, with all his love of luxury, he never did anything by halves, and there he stayed on the chance of seeing the lame Englishman, whilst the sweat ran down his back, and even the morning sun blistered it.

Presently a coolie—and Ping Sang recognized A Tsi—came out of the hotel and passed without apparently noticing him, but he had the forefinger of his left hand extended, whilst the other fingers were doubled up.That meant that the Englishman was not in the hotel.A Tsi sauntered back again.Two fingers of the other hand were extended this time.That was sufficient for the old gentleman.The Englishman had gone to Aberdeen, where the two Amoy junks were anchored.Gladly rising to his feet, Ping Sang stretched his cramped legs, slung his two baskets across his shoulders with a bamboo pole, and trotted down the main street, trying to imitate the usual ambling gait of a street hawker.It was several miles to Aberdeen, and he slowed down very quickly, dropping a sugar-cane every now and then to lighten his load, and eventually came to the outskirts of the town and to the broad road which runs along the edge of the sea.Finally he squatted down at a sharp bend of this road in the shade of a big tree, and waited with his baskets in front of him.

He had arranged for A Tsi to follow him, and presently that invaluable comprador came rapidly along in a tumble-down double rickshaw, still in his coolie dress and with a big bundle under his arm.

After much haggling with the rickshaw man, who did not appreciate the extra weight of Ping Sang's fat little person, the old sportsman got up beside A Tsi, and the coolie drew them along, sweating and grunting.

Half a mile before they arrived at Aberdeen the busy little bay, crowded with native shipping, came in sight, and A Tsi pointed out to his companion two very large junks lashed together in the middle of the harbour.

"These are the two from Amoy.They came in two days ago, and have not yet discharged any cargo.In fact they don't seem to have any," said A Tsi."If you will wait by the landing-place I will go off to the junks under pretence of selling this bundle of ready-made clothes, and try and find out more about them."

They stopped the rickshaw some hundred yards from the centre of the village, paid their grumbling coolie, and then Ping Sang trudged down to the landing-place with his baskets of sugar-canes, and squatted by the road-side, in spite of the hostile looks of the vendors already there.

A Tsi followed at some distance, got into a sampan, and was sculled out to the junks.

Ping Sang watched him clambering over the ship's sides; but almost immediately afterwards he noticed that a scuffle was going on and saw A Tsi thrown overboard, and, missing his boat underneath, fall with a splash into the sea, bundle and all.He swam ashore easily and scrambled up the beach with a very rueful countenance, amidst the shrieks of laughter of the coolies along the sea-shore, who had gathered to see the fun.

As he passed Ping Sang he made a previously agreed-upon sign, which meant that the Englishman was aboard, then he entered an eating-house across the road.

Hardly had A Tsi disappeared when a rickshaw came rushing up, a Chinaman jumped out, threw a piece of silver on the ground and ran down to the water's edge, got into a sampan, and urged the boatman to hurry off to the same two junks.Ping Sang just caught a glimpse of his face and it seemed familiar, but where he had seen it before he could not think.He watched him board the junks, and wondered whether he too would meet the same rough treatment; but he did not reappear—he evidently belonged to them.

The old gentleman racked his brains, but could not, try as he would, remember that face.

An hour went by, the bell at the little dockyard rang out, and the workmen poured out to their dinner, and Ping Sang, after his unaccustomed exercise, felt very hungry, and longed for his usual luxurious lunch and Manilla cigar.He even felt annoyed that he, one of the smartest business men in the Chinese empire, should be such a failure as a hawker, for no one would buy from him.In desperation, hunger overcame his disgust, and he munched one of his own sugar-canes, smiling grimly to himself at the unappetizing meal.Presently the crowd was scattered by a double coolie rickshaw.The men, in gaudy uniform, stopped close to him, and shortly afterwards, for he kept his eyes on the junks all the time, he saw a European in a white helmet climb down into a boat alongside and come towards the shore.

The sampan rasped against the shore, and the white man stepped out and slowly limped up the sloping landing-place, scanning the faces of the men on either side.

Ping Sang's surmise was correct.He was one of the three men—the Englishman of the "Mysterious Three"—whom he had mentioned in his first letter to Helston—the most reckless adventurer of the lot.

Ping Sang thought there was little chance of his being recognized, but took the precaution of pulling his broad hat over his eyes and bending down over his baskets.It struck him too that his shoulders and back were not grimed and blackened with the sun, and he was hastily pulling his dirty tunic over them, when he was prodded heavily in the stomach, his hat was knocked off, and standing above him was the Englishman, bursting with laughter.

"Ask this man for his license!"shouted the Englishman, and a big Sikh policeman did so.Ping Sang had not one—the one thing he had forgotten in his "make-up"—and he fumbled in his belt to give himself time to think.Out rolled two of his favourite cigars, wrapped in silver paper (he had kept them to smoke on the way back after dark), and they were worth more than a hawker could earn in a month.

He grabbed them hurriedly, but the policeman was too sharp for him, and hauled him to his feet with an unmerciful twist of his pigtail.

"Robber!thief!"grunted the highly amused crowd, which had now flocked round them.

Poor old Ping Sang was dumfounded, and though ready for most emergencies when dressed in his usual clothes, had now not a word to say.In fact, thoughts and words do not come quickly when your scalp is being nearly torn off at every move.

The crowd made way as the huge Sikh shoved his way through, and Ping Sang had perforce to follow, vainly trying to ease the strain on his pigtail.

The Englishman came with them to the police station and charged him with stealing the cigars, and before Ping Sang knew what had happened a pair of handcuffs were snapped on his wrists and he was shut up in a room.As the door closed behind him he heard the Englishman say to the sergeant in charge:

"That's a double-dyed villain, sergeant; was a servant of mine once; had to get rid of him for prigging my things.There's another of them somewhere about, and if you'll lend me a couple of your men I'll have him here in no time."

Poor old Ping Sang's heart went to his feet, for if A Tsi too were caught, no one would know what had become of them.They might be in jail for a week or more before being identified, and meanwhile Helston's ships would arrive, and no word of warning could reach them except from Ho Ming, who, he well knew, was useless in any emergency.

A Tsi, however, had seen the whole incident from an upper window of the eating-house, where he had had his clothes dried.

The affair was evidently premeditated.Somebody must have given information as to Ping Sang's presence there, and no doubt remained that this European with a limp was the Englishman whom Ping Sang, the previous night, had said he probably knew.

Now the old man was under arrest, and till he could be identified and released any plan of action would be delayed, and so much time would be gained by the pirate syndicate.

It was useless his going to the police station and stating that the dirty old hawker was no other than the wealthiest merchant in China and the president of the Trading Association, for he himself was a dirty, disreputable-looking object, and would be probably clapped in jail as an accomplice.

No; he must get back to Ho Ming as quickly as possible.

He crept down the rickety stairs and was just going out into the street, when he saw the European with a couple of Sikh policemen coming straight towards the house, led by some gesticulating men who had seen him go in there.

It flashed across his mind that whoever had seen Ping Sang had seen them together, that he was now going to be caught on some trumpery charge, and he knew well enough that, unless he could escape, their predicament might not be known for weeks.

He made his way to the back of the house, but the inn-keeper, already suspicious of him, barred the way, and he fled up the unguarded stairs again, looking eagerly for some place in which to hide, but the rooms were as bare as a barn.He then ran to the rear windows to see if he could jump to the ground; but even if he did so, there was no escape from the yard behind, for two walls, too high to climb, ran back to the face of the hill, which here was cut in a perpendicular cliff.

Already he heard the tramp of heavy boots up the stairs, and, in desperation, was about to jump and chance scaling the walls, when he suddenly noticed that next to this house was a small temple or joss-house, and that a grotesque carving at the corner of one of the projecting eaves stuck out within jumping distance.Once he was on the roof of the temple he might climb across to some lower buildings behind, and might possibly find some place to hide himself.

It was his only chance; so without a second thought he kicked off his shoes, clambered like a monkey to the roof above him, crawled to the edge, balanced himself unsteadily, and sprang for the gilded dragon seven or eight feet away from him.

As he sprang he came in view of the street and heard a yell from the crowd; but it only made him grip more firmly as he fell on the grinning dragon, the rotten wood creaking and cracking as he drew himself on to the top of the joss-house.

Moving cautiously along, he jumped to the lower buildings behind, and saw, to his great joy, that they were built right up against the cliffs, which were here much less abrupt and might possibly give some foothold.If he could but climb to the top he would be able to reach Ho Ming across the mountain; so, clinging to bushes and clumps of grass, pulling himself up from rock to rock, he painfully made his way upwards.Looking over his shoulder, he saw one of the Sikh police following him.The man jumped from the roof of the eating-house to the joss-house; but the dragon, already cracked, broke under his weight, and he fell into the court-yard beneath.

This gave A Tsi a momentary start, for they now could only get on to the roof by climbing the pillars in front of the joss-house, and this was a difficult thing to do.

The crowd in the street began throwing stones at him and several struck him, but in desperation he clambered up and up, forcing his bruised toes into every crevice that would give foothold, now slipping and sending down a shower of stones, now gaining a yard or two.His hands were bleeding and numb with pain as he fought his way, till with a gasp of relief he wriggled and wormed his way to the top, and with a last effort swung himself over the edge and rolled breathless into some bushes.

Cautiously peering over the edge, he saw several coolies clambering after him, whilst the Englishman and the Sikhs encouraged their efforts from below.

Once they reached the top he knew that he would be captured in no time, for with his naked feet and want of training he could not hope to distance these sturdy coolies in a chase over the mountain-side.

As he clutched the edge, wondering what best to do, he accidentally dislodged a stone.It rolled down and made the climbers hesitate.Instantly seeing his opportunity, he wildly tore at everything he could loosen and hurled it down on his pursuers.The foremost was hit on the hand, and slid some feet before he could steady himself.Another had his eyes filled with earth and sand, and then with great relief A Tsi saw them all retreat, slipping and sliding to the roof of the joss-house, in spite of the threats and cajoling of the police.

Then he saw the crowd streaming along the road, and knew his pursuers would climb up some other way.Getting on his feet, he began painfully pushing his way up the thickly wooded side of the mountain slopes.He was now free from immediate danger, but must reach Ho Ming without a moment's delay.He dare not descend to the main road, because the police would be certain to be on the watch for him, besides which he dare not go into the town till after dark, for he was bleeding from many cuts, and his clothes were in tatters.

It was a terribly long way and terribly hard work to climb the mountain to the Peak, but he must do it and wait till dark before striking one of the roads running down to his master's house.

Hour after hour he climbed painfully and slowly, getting his directions from the sun, and occasionally catching glimpses of the harbour beneath him.

Presently he came to a large clearing, breasted the slope in front, and saw the whole panorama of the harbour below him glistening in the sun, and the dark mountain ranges of the mainland looming behind it.The tiny boats moving backwards and forwards were the ferry-boats to Kowloon, and like toy ships lay several English cruisers.

As he stood panting with his exertions, the boom of a gun came up from below, then another and another at regular intervals.A man-of-war saluting!He searched the harbour below him, but saw no sign of powder smoke.Quickly he glanced towards the narrow waters of the Lyemoon Pass, knowing that through this entrance men-of-war usually arrived, and then from a little black, moving object on the water he saw a tiny ball of white smoke shoot out, and presently the report came gently up to him.Nineteen he counted, then twenty and twenty-one, and understood enough to know that it was a foreign man-of-war saluting the British flag.

Throwing himself down on the coarse grass, he watched the black speck moving nearer and nearer, and as it emerged from the dark shadows of the Lyemoon Pass, he saw that it was followed by five others, the last three mere dots on the sea.

Gradually the little squadron become more distinct, and he was able to distinguish two cruisers with masts and military tops leading, a merchant ship with short, stumpy funnel, and then three destroyers.At last Helston's squadron had arrived, a day before it was expected, and, unless he could give warning, the ships would run the greatest danger before night was over.

Not a moment was to be lost, so painfully he pushed on, crawling round rocks and shoving his way through the undergrowth till he came to the outskirts of the villas on top of the Peak.Creeping behind garden walls and thick hedges, he made his way, without being seen, to the belt of trees and bushes which ran by the side of the road, among which he hoped to conceal himself till dusk made it possible for him to descend to his master's house.

Fortune, however, favoured him, for who should he see wobbling down as fast as his fat little legs could carry him but that merry little tailor Hong Sing, with a great bundle of clothes under his arm.He knew him well, and called him by name as he came near.The little man gave a frightened look round, and would have made off had not A Tsi seized him by the arm and pulled him into the bushes.

When Hong Sing had calmed down he hurriedly explained matters.

Luckily the little man was returning from trying on some clothes for a customer, and had in his bundle enough clothes to rig A Tsi as a respectable-looking butler.He had no shoes, but Hong Sing knew where he could borrow a pair from a house close by, and within half an hour A Tsi was walking boldly down the road with his escort.

As they neared Ho Ming's residence A Tsi stayed behind, whilst Hong Sing went on to reconnoitre; but all was safe, and at last the faithful comprador had finished the first part of his task.

Ho Ming had already returned from his office, but it was very difficult to make him act energetically.Like most Chinamen, he had the utmost fear of the law and those who administered it.He was more polite and obsequious to a police sergeant than to the wealthiest merchant in the colony, and it was a long time before A Tsi could persuade him to take immediate steps for the release of Ping Sang.He had not even heard of the arrival of the squadron, and walked rapidly up and down the room bemoaning the absence of Ping Sang and his own helplessness."What can I do?What can I do?"was all he could say.

"You go at once to the Chief of Police and bail out Mr. Ping Sang; they will do it for you.Get them to telegraph to Aberdeen to send him up to head-quarters with an escort.Write a letter to Captain Helston before you go, and I'll take it aboard and warn him of his danger."

"Yes, yes; we ought to do that," faltered Ho Ming, already trembling at the prospect of interviewing the Chief of Police, and sat down to write a letter, whilst A Tsi went away to change his butler's clothes for some of his master's.

With the letter in his pocket, A Tsi hired a chair with four sturdy coolies, and was soon carried down to Murray Pier, off which the little squadron was now at anchor, and, taking a sampan, pulled alongside the Laird

CHAPTER IX

Captain Helston Wounded

Ping Sang Kidnapped—Cummins gives Advice—A Narrow Escape—Helston's Fears—A Futile Search—An Exchange of Prisoners

The Narrative is continued by Dr. Fox

We arrived at Hong-Kong on the afternoon of December 22, after an uneventful voyage from Singapore, and received permission to moor at Admiralty buoys.

Helston expected Ping Sang to come aboard immediately, and was rather upset that he did not appear.He is still very nervous and irritable, and the chilly evening made him complain again of his rheumatism, though he certainly seems much improved in health and spirits since he shook off the Patagonian destroyers, and has, so far, brought his ships in safety.

He and I were smoking in his after-cabin, and making up our minds as to whether we would wait any longer for Ping Sang or go ashore, dine at the Club, and afterwards try and find the old gentleman, when Pritchard, the officer of the watch, brought down a letter.

Helston hastily tore it open.I saw at once that it contained bad news, but he handed it to me without saying a word, and rang for the quarter-master to bring down the messenger.

The letter was from a Mr. Ho Ming, of whom we had never heard.

"DEAR CAPTAIN HELSTON,

"I do not know what to say.My comprador brings you this, and you may trust him.His name is A Tsi.He knows all.You are in the greatest danger.Mr. Ping Sang has been thrown into prison this afternoon, and there is a fearful conspiracy to sink your ships.In great haste and distress,

"Yours respectfully,

"HO MING."

Hardly had I read it before the bearer of the letter was shown in—an honest-looking Chinaman, not marked by small-pox.He appeared exhausted, was much scratched about the face and hands, and I saw that a patch of blood had soaked through the right sleeve of his silk coat.

He told his story in a very direct, straightforward manner, and would not be disturbed in the telling of it, although Helston kept constantly asking him unnecessary questions, wanting to know the end of the yarn before he had barely started.I admired him for his pertinacity—though I generally detest Chinamen—and for his pluck, because he was evidently almost on the point of collapsing.In fact his legs nearly gave way under him several times, and at last I pushed a chair forward and made him sit down.

Helston seemed somewhat relieved when the story had been told, for, as a matter of fact, there was little enough evidence of immediate danger, and the thought of Ping Sang the sybarite shut up in jail as a common thief was somewhat amusing.

Hardly had he finished, though, before Pritchard came down from the quarter-deck followed by a native who was one of the tallest I have ever seen, and as thin as a lath.He was in an extremely excited condition, flopped down on a chair, said his name was Ho Ming, and began wringing his hands.

"Mr. Ping Sang has disappeared," he broke out; "gone, no one knows where.I go see Chief of Police and tell him who Ping Sang is.He perfectly satisfied if I will stand bail.Telephones to Aberdeen police station to have him sent up.They reply, 'The master of the man arrested this afternoon withdrew the charge and has taken him away'.What shall we do?What shall we do?"

He was in a state of most intense alarm, pitiful to see, even in a Chinaman.

"Phew!"ejaculated Helston, "that makes it more serious.Did they know where he had gone?"

"I no wait," whined Ho Ming."I come to you quickly."

There was silence for some seconds whilst Helston and I looked at each other, for if Ping Sang had actually been kidnapped by this scoundrel of an Englishman, it was a most disastrous event for our expedition, because he was the head and brains of the Trading Association, and it was through him, and by means of his enormous credit throughout China, that the heavy expenses of the squadron had to be met.

Without him it was almost impossible to move, as I well knew that the funds with which Helston had in the first instance been supplied were well-nigh exhausted.

"See what Cummins has to say about it!"we both suggested, breaking the silence.

Cummins was the Commander of the Laird, and, even in the few months the ship had been in commission, had become the one man relied upon in every emergency either for advice or action.Short of stature, with a little thin body and very sloping shoulders, his head looked too big for his body and his long thin nose too big for his head.It was only when he talked, which he seldom did, that his dreamy grey eyes commenced to light up, and then they had the most humorous twinkle in the world.He was a great mathematician, had been a torpedo lieutenant, and was taken for a dreamy philosopher till you saw those twinkling eyes change to eyes of steel, and his somewhat effeminate, irresolute lips harden.This was only when he had a big job to undertake or a weighty decision to make.

He sauntered in, dressed as usual, without regard to appearance, in an old ill-fitting monkey jacket, the pockets of which had been roughly stitched at the sides, for he always had his hands in them and wore them out rapidly.He was chewing his usual wooden toothpick, biting off little pieces, which he carefully put in his left-hand pocket, whilst he carried a store of new ones in the right-hand one.

When he did speak he always commenced with a silly little chuckle which was distinctly irritating—to me at any rate.

He seemed vaguely amused at the presence of the two Chinese, and at the details of the crisis which Helston recounted to him.

"What do you advise?"asked Helston, biting his words, as he always does when excited."Whatever we do we must do quickly."

"Heugh!heugh!heugh!"chuckled Cummins, selecting a fresh toothpick from his pocket, "I should give that cove some brandy first of all," pointing to A Tsi, who was looking pretty ill, and he smiled blandly at us, wandered off to a corner of the cabin where Helston kept his cigars, and lighted one, whilst a servant brought the drink and turned on the electric light, for by this time it had become dark.

Every now and then he gave vent to an irritating chuckle, as if immensely amused at the whole story, whilst Helston watched him with ill-concealed impatience, knowing that it was useless to hurry him.

Then suddenly turning round, he gave his advice:

"Communicate with the police, sir, and have Ping Sang traced. Get search warrants issued, and search every junk leaving Hong-Kong to-night. This Englishman has got a long start, but there is no breeze to speak of, and if he tries to get him away to the mainland, we might catch him if you sent the destroyers out at once. That man—the one with the brandy—would possibly recognize the junk. Send him with Parker ('No. 3'); he's the smartest of the three, and will probably get away first. I will go up and make the necessary signals, and have their searchlights sent over from the SylviaThey may be able to get away in an hour."

Without waiting for Helston's "All right, Cummins, you carry on," he sauntered up on deck, and we heard him singing out for the signalman; and then, putting his head down the skylight, he chuckled; "Heugh!heugh!heugh!You need have no fear for your Chinese friend, sir; they won't hurt a hair of his head.They'll want to exchange him for that rascal Hopkins."

"Bless my soul, I never thought of that!"exclaimed Helston, much relieved; "I never thought of that!"

The Skipper's galley being called away, he and I went ashore, taking Ho Ming with us.

We landed at Murray Pier, and had to push through a crowd of curious Chinamen.

Helston clutched my arm and whispered excitedly: "There are some of those brutes who shadowed me in London.Get out of this quickly, old chap!"I thought he was probably mistaken, and put it down to his nervousness, but when we got into rickshaws and were driven rapidly up the street, I could swear that several detached themselves from the crowd and followed us in the dark shadows of the trees on either side.

However, there was no trace of them when we reached the main road.

By a stroke of luck we found the Chief of Police at Headquarters, and he telephoned to Aberdeen for more information.

Ping Sang had been discharged two hours ago, and was taken aboard the Amoy junks, one of which was just then sailing.

He listened impatiently whilst the Chief of Police spoke through the telephone.

"Has she left the harbour?"..."Well, can't you follow her?"..."How about the steam-boat?"...

"She is already out of the harbour," he said, turning to us and hooking up the telephone-receiver, "and their steam-boat is under repairs and they cannot stop her.I'll send one of our patrol boats from here to cut her off."

"My destroyers must be ready by this time," interposed Helston, "and if you will make out search warrants, I'll catch her before she can get across to the mainland."

"The warrants would take some time," answered the official, "and I should have to see the Governor.The patrol boat shall get away immediately."

But for once Helston made up his mind."Warrants or no warrants, I'll search every junk under way to-night," he said, and strode impatiently out of the room.

"I don't care what you do, outside the harbour limits," said the Chief of Police to me as I followed Helston; "and it's a very dark night, and no one will be any the wiser."

Ho Ming coming with us, we went down to the Victoria Hotel, and after some difficulty—for all we knew of the Englishman was that he walked with a limp—found that he had not returned in time for dinner, as was his custom.

Coming back from the hotel, I several times thought I could hear the pattering of soft feet behind me, though I could see no one.To reach Murray Pier, however, we had to go round the cricket ground, and as we passed along the front of it I saw two shadowy figures dart across to the trees which bordered the road at the side, and it struck me immediately that, if they meant any mischief, they might head us off there.

With a sudden inspiration, I sang out to Helston, who was ahead of me, "Race you to the pier for a dollar, old chap!"and called to my coolie, "Fi tee, fi tee!You beatee him fellow lickshaw, half dollah can do."

This was enough for the sporting coolies, and they raced like mad things round the corner and down the dark road.

It was lucky we were going so fast, because as we came abreast the one electric light in the road, two pistol shots rang out from the shadows under the trees and then a third.One splintered through the woodwork of Helston's rickshaw, and both our rickshaw coolies, with a yell of fright, dropped their handles, and fled for their lives.Helston tumbled head-foremost into the road at the sudden stop, though I was just able to save myself, and turning, saw a Chinaman within two yards of me levelling a pistol straight at Helston.I struck at him with my heavy malacca stick, and caught him on the wrist just as he fired again, the pistol rolling into the mud.

I grabbed at it, and the Chinaman fled into the shadows.

Helston scrambled to his feet, and we both jumped behind trees, the policeman on duty at the pier rushing towards us with his revolver in his hand and blowing his whistle lustily.

Ho Ming, whose rickshaw man had dropped him twenty yards behind, crawled out from behind another tree, and soon we had quite an army of policemen running up from different directions, one of them dragging my own wretched coolie after him into the electric light.

Then came some of our boat's crew with boat's stretchers in their hands, and just as they reached us Helston suddenly fell in a heap on the road.

They carried Helston down to the pier, and there he regained consciousness and struggled to his feet.I saw his left arm was broken.I supported him down to the boat, got him safely aboard, and ripped his clothes off to examine him."Beastly ashamed of myself, old chap," he kept saying, "but they've got me in the chest too."

The bone was smashed five inches above the elbow.The flattened bullet had then torn a deep groove through his chest muscles, and he had lost a great quantity of blood.His wrist and forearm were also paralysed, so it was a pretty bad job, and took me and my surgeon, young Richardson, an hour and a half before we had him ship-shape again.

We ought to have given him chloroform and tried to sew up the damaged nerve, but he would not hear of it, because he was anxious to get the destroyers away and look after a hundred details, when once Cummins had reported their departure; and all the time we were busy with him, putting on splints and sewing up the wound in his chest, messengers and signalmen kept coming and going incessantly. He feared that one or other of the junks would drift down alongside and blow up, and worked himself into a tremendous pitch of excitement when the Strong Arm delayed reporting "all water-tight doors closed". Then he thought it would be advisable for the steam-boats of the two ships to patrol round and round till daylight, and it took a long time to get steam up in them, all of which excited him still more.

Of course I knew that Cummins would "carry on" without him perfectly well, and I am certain he knew that too, and the knowledge only made him the more determined to superintend everything personally.

Finally he wanted to go aboard the Strong Arm to see for himself that she was prepared for any emergency; but that was too much for me, and he eventually was satisfied with sending for her captain, Hunter, to report personally.

I made him eat some dinner—he had had nothing since lunch-time—and urged him to take a sleeping-draught.Not a bit of it.He was going to stay on deck till sunrise."I'm no baby, old chap; it's all right, now you've fixed it up;" and he had a chair placed on the quarter-deck and sat there.However, I put half a grain of opium in his cup of coffee, and what with that and with the strain of the last few hours, he was soon sound asleep, and we moved him, chair and all, into the navigator's cabin, much to the relief of everyone, and especially of Cummins.

Personally I did not believe in the blowing-up theory, nor did I feel any intense interest either in old Ping Sang's fate or in the effects his disappearance would have on the expedition.As a matter of fact, I was pretty well bored with the whole affair, and would have "chucked it" willingly, but for my chum Helston.I turned in and slept soundly, as, thank Heaven!I generally do.

As I conjectured, nothing happened during the night, and at daybreak the destroyers had not returned.

Helston had slept fairly well, but, what with the pain in his arm and chest, a bad headache from the effects of the opium, and the disappointment of not recovering Ping Sang, was almost unbearable.

He had a great number of official calls to pay on shore, and was also very anxious to "carry on" aboard his ships, but I had at last to come definitely to an understanding with him and tell him very plainly—and he knew that I meant it—that I would not remain in the ship any longer unless he went on the sick list and did exactly what he was told to do.If he continued to play the fool, I swore that I would invalid myself home, and—perhaps most powerful argument of all, though I do believe he would not have had me desert him for anything—I assured him that if he persisted in refusing to act on my advice his health would most certainly break down, he would be obliged to give up the command, and then what hope would he ever have of winning that fickle little jade Milly.

Eventually we got him to bed—I was horrified to see how thin he had become—and I gave him another sleeping-draught, darkened his cabin, roped off the quarter-deck to prevent any trampling of feet over his head, and presently he went to sleep again, sleeping soundly till the afternoon.

He looked much less haggard when he woke, but I kept him in bed.

"How long are you going to keep me here, old chap?"he asked piteously.

"Two days more at the very least," I told him.

The destroyers had returned that afternoon without having been successful in their search.

During the next few days the police searched, without result, every junk in the harbour and every place where the Englishman could have concealed himself or Ping Sang.The second Amoy junk was found to contain no suspicious cargo, but, for all that, it was carefully watched, to give early warning lest she should attempt any treachery, because Cummins was still doubtful about her, and did not relax any precautions during those long nights.

Christmas-day went by, and Helston was able to walk round the gaudily decorated mess-decks, headed by our amateur band playing those atrocious tunes, "The Roast Beef of Old England" and "For he's a jolly good fellow", and everyone gorged as usual at lunch and slept like boa constrictors afterwards in their cabins.

I suppose I am too old for sea life, because Christmas so-called festivities on board ship bore me to distraction. At night the midshipmen had what they called a sing-song in the gun-room, to which the Strong Arm's gun-room had been invited. They made the most disgusting noise—it makes me angry to think of it even now—and had the confounded impudence to ask me down, as they all wanted to drink my health.

The yarn had got about that but for me Helston would have been killed.

Perfect rot!but there it was; and the Sub and senior midshipman came to my cabin after I had turned in and pressed me to go down, even for five minutes.

I was reading a favourite chapter of Carlyle's Sartor Resartus—what a biting cynic that man was!—and hate being disturbed, so told them to go to Jericho, and wished I had the power to send them there, the whole bag of tricks.

No news of Ping Sang had arrived, and though Helston naturally worried himself, Cummins was still convinced that, as he had been kidnapped solely to be exchanged for Hopkins, we should shortly hear of him.

And so it turned out, for a letter came one morning, apparently written by the lame Englishman and posted from Macao, the Portuguese town at the mouth of the West river.

He signed himself Chas.R.Hamilton, and suggested an exchange of prisoners.I quote an extract from his letter as showing his unbounded impudence and his evident knowledge that we were bound hand and foot whilst Ping Sang was in his power.

"...In conducting war against the Chinese Government at Peking (war he called it, not piracy!)we little imagined that we should have the honour of meeting ships manned by my own countrymen....Ping Sang, you may be glad to hear, is in robust health, but is anxious to return to you, as, I understand, your further proceedings are practically dependent upon his financial assistance.

"As he is of such great importance, I am naturally loth to part with him; but unfortunately I hear you have on board your ship an old friend of mine, Reginald Hopkins, and if you could deprive yourself of his society we might, in short, exchange our two unwilling guests ...

"In arranging the details of such exchange I must first ask you to give me your word of honour that you will not attempt any treachery during the transfer, nor endeavour, once the exchange has been made, to follow or interfere with Hopkins.

"I suggest that you send a destroyer to Macao with your reply.On her arrival a man giving my name will board her and receive the letter.If favourable, I will then write you again, and only regret that my distance from Macao will cause much delay.

"Failing a reply I shall, of course, retain possession of Ping Sang...."

We had a council of war after dinner that night, that is, Cummins and Helston had, for I myself only sat near the fire and smoked, and refused to give any advice even when they asked me.

I am paid to come this fool's jaunt as a doctor, and I'll see them hanged first before I interfere with their job.I certainly would not let them meddle with mine.If they did follow any advice I happened to give and it was unsuccessful, I should never hear the last of it, or, if it by chance were successful, they would pat each other on the back and pretend and believe too that it was their plan all along; so it was much better to smoke my pipe and keep my own ideas to myself.

Eventually they decided to arrange the exchange, although Cummins seemed personally averse to such a proceeding, thinking it much beneath our dignity to treat with such a man.

CHAPTER X

Destroyer "No.1" Meets her Fate

To Release Ping Sang—Trapped—"No.1" Disabled—A Gallant Deed—Sinking—Poor "No.1" Disappears

Mr. Glover's Narrative is now continued

The three days after Captain Helston had been shot (his coxswain told me he probably would have been killed but for Dr. Fox) were most exciting.Then things calmed down and became rather monotonous.We were not allowed ashore after sunset, however.Captain Helston did not want anything to happen to us midshipmen, and that was a nuisance, for we missed any amount of fun—dances and things.

Our gun-room people played the Strong Arm's gun-room at Socker in the Happy Valley, and knocked "the hide and hair" off them; and this was some consolation, for they had been rather uppish. We also had a picnic in the sailing pinnace to Deep Bay, which was jolly good fun, although we all got wet through coming back, and that ass Dumpling dropped the bread into the water whilst he was wading ashore with it.

I had been sent back to the Laird from "No. 3", and Tommy Foote (Toddles) from "No. 1", and on New Year's eve we were having a bit of a jamberee in the gun-room—we had asked for half an hour's extra lights—when Jeffreys, our Sub-Lieutenant, was sent for by the Commander.

We thought it was because of the row we were making, but he came back and told Tommy to get his things ready and stand by to go aboard "No.1" at daybreak.

"No.1" went off in the morning, but was back again in time for seven-bell tea.Tommy hadn't much to tell.They'd run over to Macao, and Mr. Pattison, the Skipper, had given a letter to a Chinaman who had come alongside as soon as they anchored.

That was all, and nothing more happened for seven or eight days, whilst we had to grind at school, mathematics and torpedo theoretical rot and other things.

But then there were more rumours, and one day we heard that all Hopkins's gear was being packed—you remember him, the Yankee secretary who had been under arrest ever since leaving Colombo—we often wondered why.

Tommy Foote was sent again to "No.1", and when next morning Mr. Pattison came aboard for final orders, he was evidently to take Hopkins with him.

You bet your life I was dead keen to go with Tommy and see the fun, for there was evidently something in the wind; so I asked Mr. Pattison to take me too.You see I had rather a pull over him, for he was very sweet on my cousin Milly; so he asked the Commander and off I went.

We steamed out through the West Channel, and Tommy and I thought we were bound to Macao again, but we were wrong, and it turned out that our destination was a small island about sixty miles away, at least I should think it was that distance, for we were doing about fifteen knots, and it took us four hours before we ran into a narrow little harbour between high cliffs, anchoring some ten cables from shore.

There wasn't a sign of a living thing, and we waited and waited, whilst Mr. Pattison kept on looking at his watch.He told us then that we were going to exchange Hopkins for the old Chinese gentleman who had been kidnapped.

"Why!is Hopkins one of the pirates?"we both asked, somewhat disappointedly, for he was hardly our idea of a pirate, and we rather liked him, he was so amusing.

"I only knew it myself this morning," Mr. Pattison told us.

Well, presently a sampan came wriggling out from behind a small headland, and when it arrived alongside there was a fat little man sitting in it gorgeously dressed.

I didn't tell you that we had brought a man named A Tsi with us; but this man recognized him immediately as Ping Sang.The fat old chap climbed nimbly over the side and shook hands all round, so pleased was he to be safe again.

Hopkins was brought on deck, and apparently he and Ping Sang knew each other, though they only glared like two cats, and he climbed down into the sampan, Mr. Pattison taking no notice of him whatever.

However, Tommy and I stepped forward and shook him by the hand.I don't quite know why, but expect it was because we wanted to say that we had shaken hands with a real pirate.He seemed quite pleased.

His bags and boxes were so numerous that the sampan had to make two trips, and this delayed us nearly an hour, Mr. Pattison fuming with impatience, and steam blowing off from the escape pipes.

Directly the sampan had shoved off with its last load, we weighed and secured the anchor and were off back to Hong-Kong.

We thought our work was over for the day, but were mightily mistaken, for as we came to the mouth of the harbour, there, to our dismay, steaming gently towards us, were the three Patagonian destroyers, and behind them a cruiser painted dark green from mast-head to water-line, very much like the Strong Arm, only not so big.And they were, all of them, between us and Hong-Kong.

I never felt so scared in my life.Tommy went as white as a sheet, and even Mr. Pattison turned a bit yellow.

He swore terribly and cursed them for treacherous hounds—it was just about the neatest trap you ever saw in your life—and ordered the helm hard a-port.

Round we went, clear of the harbour mouth, and heading south as if we were going to run away; but if the people in the Patagonians thought we were going to do so they were jolly well mistaken; it was only to get up full speed and clear to quarters, which we did in a brace of shakes, the men as keen as mustard.

Tommy had to go down on deck and take charge of the two for'ard 6-pounders, but Mr. Pattison ordered me to stay on the bridge with him.The helm was put hard a-starb'd, we swung round like a top, and headed straight for them.

The destroyers seemed at first to be making straight for us too, but almost immediately turned off to starboard and ran into the little harbour we had just left.The signalman sang out, as they showed their sides to us, that they had no guns aboard, so that explained their flight.

We were now rushing down on the cruiser, going at quite twenty knots, and wondered whether she would open fire.We were not long left in doubt, for we were not more than eight hundred yards from her when we saw two little spurts of flame from under her bows, and then more from her fore-top, and the little shells whistled past and burst in the sea behind us.

I know I ducked my head, and rather thought Mr. Pattison did so too.

Then we began firing from the 12-pounder on the bridge and from Tommy's 6-pounders as fast as we could, and what with the noise of the guns going off so close to me and the whistling of the enemy's shells, I felt quite dazed, and it was no use to bob or duck, because the air seemed full of them.

Mr. Pattison startled me to life again by sending me aft with a message to the Sub.As I ran down the ladder two holes suddenly appeared in the after funnel, and a cloud of smoke burst out with a roar close to the after steering-shield.I must confess I stopped running, absolutely in a funk, and my legs would hardly hold me up.It was only for a second, though, and I ran aft just as hard as I could.The shelter screen was all bent and twisted, and in front of it were two of the after 6-pounder gun's crew lying on their faces, and blood was oozing from under them and running along the deck.I just managed to give the message to the Sub, who was bending over them, and then I was horribly sick.

I don't remember how I got back to the bridge, but just as I did so—and now we were not a hundred yards from the cruiser—a shell burst on the fo'c'stle close to the port anchor, and pieces came tearing through the canvas screen round the bridge with a horrid shrieking noise.Looking down I saw that one of the securing chains had been smashed, and that the anchor was now half over the side, hanging by one small chain.

Mr. Pattison saw it too, and tumbled down to the fo'c'stle, shouting to me, "Keep her as she is, and run along her starboard side as close as you can go."

I knew what he was going to do.If that last securing chain carried away, the anchor would go overboard, and even if the cable held at the stopper and did not run out, we might swerve right across the cruiser's bows and be cut in half.

We were right up to her now, and through her bow-gun ports I could see the men round the small quick-firers, but the mere fact of having a job to do prevented me from feeling frightened.Another second and we were alongside her fo'c'stle, not twenty feet away, and their small guns fired point-blank at us as we rushed past her side.I remember dimly noticing Mr. Pattison lying on his stomach on the fo'c'stle lashing the anchor for dear life.My ears were ringing and painful, my head seemed to be splitting, but I had enough common sense left to see that the stern of the cruiser seemed to be swinging into us.

She must have put her helm over, and meant to crush us as her stern swung round.

I yelled to the quarter-master at the wheel to "hard a-starboard", for she would be into us before we could clear her.I could just see his face as he stood on the steering platform below, and he heard me, but shook his head grimly and put the helm over to port.Our bows were already flying past her quarter-deck, and I saw at once that he was right and I was wrong, for our stern immediately began to swerve outwards.

It was a terrible moment, for she was swinging into us faster than we were swinging away from her.

She must strike us and I thought all was over, and gripped hold of the bridge rails, waiting for the bump.

Another second—there was a crash!We heeled right over to port till I saw the lee gunwale a-wash, and, oh horrors!the two men lying on the deck aft slipped overboard with shrieks of agony and fear.I saw our stern crumple like tissue-paper.We grated along, separated, righted ourselves, and were flying away.

Mr. Pattison jumped up to the bridge, yelling to "'midships the helm", but it would not move, and was jammed hard over.

All the men aft had been knocked off their feet, and I saw them scrambling up again as Mr. Pattison rushed aft, and all crowded round the crumpled stern.

We were now steaming in a circle, and our broadside was exposed to the cruiser, which commenced firing very rapidly again.

Then I saw the men aft jump clear of the rudder chain, the rudder swung amidships, and, thank God!we darted away; but something must have happened to the engines, for we were not going nearly so fast.

This has taken a long time to write, but probably did not last fifty seconds.It seemed a lifetime.

Directly we were clear Mr. Pattison came for'ard and took charge.

They had unshackled the steering chain, he told me, and the rudder had swung amidships.The starboard propeller had been smashed in the collision, and, with only the port screw working and the helm almost useless, we struggled along in a very erratic manner, our bows now going round to starboard and now falling off to port.

Shells were shrieking all round us, but going wild, probably because we were swerving so much from side to side.

To avoid exposing the men, Mr. Pattison ordered all those on deck to take shelter under the fo'c'stle, leaving only himself on the bridge and the quarter-master at the wheel.

I was sent with the necessary orders, and for the first time noticed Ping Sang and A Tsi standing on deck near the for'ard torpedo-tube quite unconcerned; but I hustled them for'ard, and everybody, even the Sub, Tommy, and I, had to crowd down below, and did not see what happened during the next five minutes, though they were evidently making better shooting, for we heard several small explosions where shells must have struck.

All at once there was a muffled roar and the hissing noise of escaping steam.

We three jumped on deck and saw a great hole in the deck near the base of the foremost funnel, and clouds of steam and smoke pouring from it.

We opened the manhole cover to the for'ard boiler compartment, more steam and smoke came swishing out, and in the middle of it crawled out a stoker, with his face and arms terribly scalded.He just managed to pull himself out, and, yelling with pain, would have thrown himself overboard, had not the Sub caught him and hurled him to the deck, where he lay writhing and shrieking.

Tommy and I peered through the manhole to see if anyone else was alive, but the Sub shoved us aside, and, with a heaving-line lashed round him, and holding an old oilskin in front of his face, crawled down.His name was Harrington—I must tell you it, because this was the pluckiest thing Tommy and I ever saw.

We took charge of the heaving-line, and he half-stumbled or was half-lowered down into the steam.

When he got down the ladder and put his feet into the water we could hear swishing about, he gave a great cry of pain—it must have been nearly boiling—but he did not hesitate, and we could dimly see him groping about on the bottom plates, and could also see that the water was rapidly rising, and was quickly over his knees.

He called out in a squeaky voice for another rope, and lashed it to something, which we two and some men who came to help hoisted up.

It was another of the stokers, but such a sight as I shall never forget.He was quite dead, and half the flesh was torn from one shoulder and from one side of the face.

As we hauled him on deck his skin seemed to come away with his clothes wherever we touched him.

Oh, it was a most fearful sight!

Tommy and I were roughly pushed away by an old petty officer, and the body was covered with a tarpaulin.

We could not keep our eyes off that heap, and should have fainted in another second had not Harrington himself appeared out of the manhole with his face just like beef and bleeding, and his hands like turkeys' claws.

He fell down on the deck, and as I knelt down he said in a hoarse whisper; "My feet, my feet!For God's sake undo my boots!"

We unlaced them, and oh, the terrible pain it was to him to take them off!and though we cut his socks with a knife, the skin all came off with them.He had fainted by that time.

Then I heard Mr. Pattison's voice, and Tommy rushed aft and brought some brandy and a pillow, and we propped his head up and poured a little brandy down his throat, though it was difficult to do it, because his tongue was so swollen.

They covered him with a blanket, but he was a huge man, and his two raw feet stuck out at the end.I shall never forget them.

All this terrible time I had noticed nothing else, but now, looking over the side, I saw that the destroyer was only going very slowly, and that there was a big hole at the water-line, where that last shell had come aboard, and water was pouring in.

No shells seemed to be coming our way now, and looking towards the island I saw the cruiser steaming away from us without firing, and, hurrah!hurrah!two great splashes of water leapt up, one after the other, close to her stern, and boom!boom!came the reports of heavy guns from the north.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted Tommy, "there's the Strong Arm."

You can imagine what a relief it was and what we felt.

We yelled and shouted like mad things, and even Harrington had strength enough to raise his head and wave his arm, though he could not make as much noise as a mouse.

It was indeed the Strong Arm firing her foremost guns, and making a great bow wave as she steamed towards us.

"Out collision mat!"shouted Mr. Pattison, and the order was yelled down the fo'c'stle and everyone came rushing out, got a line round the destroyer's bottom, made it fast to the collision mat, and hauled it over the great rent in the side.

It took three or four minutes to do this, and by that time the deck seemed quite close to the water, and the stern seemed even lower. The Strong Arm was now drawing up rapidly.

Then I was sent with a couple of men to screw down the hatch covers leading to Mr. Pattison's cabin and the ward-room, and by the time we had done it the deck was a-wash.

The starboard engine had stopped by now, and we lay wallowing with a horrid log-like jerky motion whilst the men tried to get a tarpaulin over the hole in the stern, but did not seem to do any good.

The boats were next got into the water.They were full of holes, but by stuffing their jumpers into the shot holes in the whaler and by bailing hard, they just managed to keep her afloat.The collapsable Berthon boats were quite useless, being pierced in half a dozen places, and the dinghy was smashed to smithereens.

There was only the whaler for fifty men. This meant that most of us would have to take our chance of hanging on to an oar or wooden grating till the Strong Arm could pick us up.

By the time we had lowered Mr. Harrington (the Sub) and the scalded stokers into the whaler our stern was quite under the water, and we were heeling over to starboard, till fittings, not secured to the deck, began sliding down, and the sea came over the foot of our deck stanchions.We could actually feel poor old "No.1" sinking under us—a horrid sensation.

"Scramble on deck, boys!All up from below!"was shouted down the engine-room and stokehold hatches, and everybody began taking off their boots and jumpers.

This gave me a very creepy feeling.

Steam was roaring out of the escape-pipe, and we all anxiously looked first at Mr. Pattison, expecting him to give the order to jump, and then towards the Strong Arm, wishing she would come along faster.

Mr. Pattison was hanging on to the bridge rails—the bridge had a tremendous slant—to keep himself upright, and the signalman hoisted a signal that we were sinking.

The Strong Arm came rushing up, firing fast from her bow guns, and for one horrid second I thought she would not see our signal in the excitement of chasing the cruiser.

Tommy and I were hanging on to the torpedo-tube aft with our feet in water, and I heard him gasp, with a very white face, "She's going on"; but a moment later we saw her boats' crews clambering over the nettings into their boats, and raised a mighty cheer of relief as she slowed down abreast of us.Her boats were lowered with a run and a splash, and came pulling over to us as hard as men could pull, and as they arrived alongside our men were ordered to scramble on board them.

We had a row as to who should jump first, for Tommy said that he belonged to the destroyer and I was only a passenger, so that he ought to be the last to leave; but I said that as I was senior to him—I was two places above him passing out of the Britannia—it was my duty to see him get into the boat first.

We had to cling to the torpedo-tube to argue it out, for the deck was now so steep we couldn't stand on it.

"Get into the boats you young idiots!"shouted Mr. Pattison."Why are you keeping the boats waiting, you lop-eared sons of Ham?"

So we settled the matter by both jumping at the same time.I was jolly glad that I did not let him have his own way.

Just as we had all shoved off, Mr. Pattison being the test to leave, we heard a cracking noise—a bulk-head must have given way—"No.1" almost righted herself—her bows came out of water and pointed higher and higher, till they were almost upright.There she stayed while you could have counted fifteen or sixteen, and then slowly slipped down out of sight.

There was just a little swish as the sea rushed in to cover her, two of her capstan bars came shooting out of the water, and poor old "No. 1" had disappeared. I felt rather snuffy, and I knew Tommy did too. We soon were aboard the Strong Arm, and down in the gun-room they all crowded round and asked questions.It was not till then that I discovered that my cap was missing, and found too that my hair was all matted together with blood.

Tommy searched and found a cut about an inch long, and felt rather annoyed, I think, that he himself hadn't anything to show.

You can imagine I felt jolly proud to have been wounded, though it did rather take the gilt off the ginger-bread not to have known it at the time.It was probably a piece of the shell that smashed the anchor-securing chain.

It must have delayed the Strong Arm nearly an hour, to stop her engines alongside "No. 1" and to get all of us aboard, and by that time the pirate cruiser was only a cloud of black smoke on the horizon, with the three little destroyers which had again come out of the bay steaming after her at full speed.

CHAPTER XI

The Action off Sin Ling

The Action Commences—Casualties

The Report submitted by Commander Richard Hunter, R. N. ,
Captain of the "Strong Arm".

The report of the proceedings which Commander Richard Hunter, R. N. , the Captain of the Strong Arm, subsequently submitted to Captain Helston, is so terse and yet so graphic, that it is inserted here.

*      *      *      *      *

"H. I. M. S. Strong Arm,

"Hong-Kong, 9th Jan.

"SIR,

"I have the honour to report that, in accordance with your signal received at 8.30 A.M.on 8th Jan., I immediately raised steam in fifteen boilers.One hour later I was able to slip from the buoy, and proceeded southwards to the rendezvous indicated in your orders.

"By 10 A.M.I was making fourteen knots, and at 11 nearly nineteen, which speed was gradually increased to twenty as the remainder of my boilers raised steam.

"At 12.35 P.M.the island then being in sight, the mast-head look-out sighted a cruiser and three destroyers steaming towards it from the west, and almost immediately afterwards sighted destroyer 'No.1' leaving the island.

"The cruiser was apparently heading to cut off 'No.1', whilst the three destroyers disappeared under the land.

"We then saw 'No.1' head straight for the cruiser, which thereupon opened a vigorous fire from her small guns.'No.1' disappeared behind her and apparently fouled her stern, for she came away steaming but slowly and steering in a very erratic manner.

"She was now under a very severe fire, and a considerable explosion occurred nearly amidships at 12.45.

"Being now 10,000 yards from the cruiser, I opened fire on her from my foremost guns, and in a couple of minutes caused her to cease firing on the crippled destroyer and steam off to the southward.At this range I did not hit her.

"I followed at my utmost speed, and was rapidly closing, but as 'No.1' signalled that she was unable to keep afloat I stopped alongside her and removed her crew.I regret to report that she sank immediately afterwards.

"I also regret that five men of her crew are missing, including two wounded men who fell overboard, and that ten are injured—Sub-lieutenant Harrington, suffering from severe burns and scalds, Midshipman Glover, slightly wounded, and one man badly burnt (since dead).

"Having re-hoisted my boats, I renewed the pursuit, and at 2 was overhauling her fast.Meanwhile the three destroyers had scattered and I disregarded them.

"At 3.25 we made our distance 6000 yards by range-finder, and I again opened fire from my forecastle 6-inch and the two foremost upper deck 6-inch.

"The enemy replied vigorously from two or three guns and continued her flight.

"Though we made one or two hits at this range, it was not till we had drawn up to within 4000 yards that our shooting became good, and at 4.32—the island of Sin Ling being five miles to leeward—she caught fire astern, steered wildly, and exposed her broadside.

"We now hit her time after time, and her fire became slow and very inaccurate.

"At 4.56 she hauled down her flag (the Chinese imperial colours, with a black instead of a red dragon and ball) and ceased firing.

"I too ceased firing and lay to about 2000 yards distant, unwilling to go within torpedo range.I then ordered my First Lieutenant (C.W.Smith) to board her, and gave him sixty men to form a prize crew and navigate her to Hong-Kong.

"When my boats were half-way across she suddenly opened fire on them, gathered way, and steamed towards me with the evident intention of ramming, an evolution which I managed to avoid by going full steam astern.

"She also discharged a torpedo whilst passing, which struck me on the port bow, and, though failing to explode, stove in one plate.Some water entered through rivet holes.

"At the same time she opened a very rapid and sustained fire, which caused many casualties on the open deck, where the men had crowded to see her.

"Thereupon I renewed the action, and quickly cleared her upper works and subdued her fire, my 6-inch shells doing very evident destruction.

"She was repeatedly hulled, flames burst out in several places, and at 5.15 made for Sin Ling at full speed, beaching herself in a sinking condition at 5.42.

"Daylight was now failing.

"I took the Strong Arm as far inshore as I dared, after picking up my boats' crews (they had been fired upon in the most wanton manner), and shelled her at point-blank range. In ten minutes I had the satisfaction of seeing a large explosion aft; a great gap was made in her side, she heeled to port till the water reached the base of her funnels, and half her deck was submerged. She was evidently too badly damaged to be floated.

"This being done, I returned to Hong-Kong and moored to my buoy at 9.25 P.M.

"Very little damage has been sustained by this ship, and it can be repaired without assistance from the shore.

"I regret, however, to report the following casualties:—

"Killed: One petty officer and five men.

"Wounded: Three officers, two petty officers, and thirty-five men.

"I have the honour to be, &c.,

"RICHARD HUNTER, Commander R.N.,

"Captain of H. I. M. S. Strong Arm."

CHAPTER XII

A Council of War

The "Strong Arm" Returns—Boarding the "Hai Yen"—Jenkins—The Council of War—Ping Sang's Chart—Cummins has a Plan—Ping Sang Remembers

Captain Helston, with his left arm bandaged to his side, and one empty sleeve of his monkey jacket flapping in the wind, was on deck to see "No.1" slip from her buoy and start on her fatal voyage.No sooner had her dark hull disappeared in the morning mist than he began to regret having sent her.A fit of his old irresolution returned, and he would have recalled her had she been within signalling distance.

He sent for Cummins—a grotesque-looking object in the early morning, unshaven and wearing a pair of huge sea-boots.

"You know, Cummins," he began, "I have a feeling that something will happen to her.There is no knowing but that she will poke her nose into some trouble.What induced me to trust to their word of honour I don't know, and it may simply be a trap to recapture Hopkins."

"Ha!ha!ha!"chuckled Cummins, chewing his toothpick, "it's too late now, sir; we can't communicate with her."

"Well, don't you think it might be advisable to get up steam and follow her."

"Can't manage it, sir. They are refitting the starboard low-pressure piston-ring, and it won't be ready for another twenty-four hours. You might send the Strong Arm, though.I was always averse to trusting that Englishman's word."

Helston, to tell the truth, was somewhat nettled at Cummins's influence on board and his somewhat arbitrary manner, and the implied "I told you so" irritated him to a degree.So, saying sharply, "Very well, we'll let her go alone," went down to his breakfast.

But ten minutes later he again changed his mind, and made a signal which resulted in the Strong Arm's rapid departure.

He expected both ships back by four o'clock at the latest, and as the hours went by and there was no sign of either, he became extremely nervous and restless, pacing up and down his after-cabin all that afternoon. At dinner he scarcely touched anything, and was just on the point of going out himself aboard "No. 2" or "No. 3", when the signal midshipman reported that the Strong Arm was entering the harbour and making her number.

He ran up on deck to see for himself, and quickly a signal blinked across from the Strong Arm's mast-head lamp that she had driven a strange cruiser ashore, and rescued the crew of "No. 1", which had been sunk.

The news rushed like wildfire round the ship, and officers and men crowded on deck to see her slowly creeping to her buoy and signalling for medical assistance.

Helston went aboard her immediately, and Dr. Fox and the other doctors of the squadron worked all night with the wounded, many of whom had to be sent to the Naval Hospital next morning, including Harrington, whose condition was very grave.

Helston obtained a rapid report of the day's happenings from Hunter, and congratulated Ping Sang on his escape.

The identity of the strange cruiser was unknown, and even Ping Sang, who had more information than anyone else as to the resources of the pirates, had been unable to recognize her.However, it was a great achievement to have destroyed so powerful a vessel at the cost of one destroyer, though the loss of life was much to be regretted.

"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, I believe," was Ping Sang's comment, as he calmly puffed his cigar on the sacred quarter-deck.

The loss of life evidently did not worry him in the slightest degree.

Helston was most severe with Pattison, for, though praising his intrepidity and personal behaviour, he censured him strongly for his manoeuvring of "No.1".

"What induced you to run straight at her instead of taking to your heels and escaping, I cannot think, and to leave the bridge in charge of a midshipman at the most critical moment seems to me to show a great want of judgment.You had no torpedoes on board, and it was impossible for you to damage her."

Except for the fact that his action delayed the cruiser, and ultimately led to her destruction, Helston would have sent him home forthwith.

This was not his hasty judgment, for he made no remarks at the time, but was given two days later when all the circumstances had been investigated more closely.In fact Harrington, the Sub, who had been so badly injured in his attempt to rescue people from the stokehold, was the only one belonging to "No.1" who came in for any praise, and he was too ill in hospital to appreciate it.

This opinion was general throughout the squadron, and poor Pattison, who was sent to the Sylvia for duty, more or less in disgrace, felt it very keenly.

"I did the first thing that came into my head," he said, "and it wasn't till we were right on top of her that I remembered we had no torpedoes on board."

The morning after the return of the Strong Arm, this ship, with Helston aboard, and the two remaining destroyers in company, steamed to Sin Ling Island.

The strange cruiser was found still lying on the rocks—a melancholy-looking object.Her after magazine had evidently blown up, and she was a total wreck aft of her main-mast—a mass of warped and twisted plates and deck beams.

On her twisted stern was her name Hai Yen in Chinese characters, the gilt scorched by fire; but this name did not identify her, and her origin and history were still a mystery.

No complaint could be made of the Strong Arm's captains of guns, for their shooting had been marvellously effective, and her upper works were riddled with shell holes. Two guns had been dismounted, and her funnels were pierced in a hundred places.

Helston and Hunter had come to the conclusion that she had been escorting the three destroyers from the south, chiefly from the certain fact that they had neither guns nor torpedo-tubes aboard when first seen by "No. 1". These spare tubes and guns might still be aboard the Hai YenSo a thorough search was made through the whole ship, and, though none of these things were found, it was discovered that the ship had been pretty thoroughly stripped of everything movable, and that the upper deck was covered with coal-dust.The coal must have been brought up after the action, because in places it covered great smears of blood, and the only inference was that the three destroyers had coaled from her bunkers during the night, removed all her remaining portable stores—even her small quick-firers had disappeared—and also taken her crew aboard them.

To make certain that the crew were not still on the island, Helston landed two hundred men and thoroughly explored it.It was but a small rocky outcrop from the Chinese coast, not a mile long, but by the time this had been done daylight was beginning to fail.No traces of the crew were discovered.

During this time the midshipmen had been allowed to inspect the ship, and, needless to say, returned with much spoil.One of them had an undamaged chronometer, another actually brought off the steering-wheel from the conning tower, two of them lowered the ship's bell into their cutter, whilst a daring youngster swarmed up to the foremast-head and secured her gilt weather-vane.

They were all vastly pleased with themselves and their trophies.

Everybody being aboard again, the Strong Arm steered to the north, and, on passing the island where "No. 1" had exchanged Hopkins for Ping Sang, sent the two destroyers inshore to reconnoitre; but though they entered the little bay where "No. 1" had been so neatly trapped, and explored the whole of the coast with their searchlights, no sign of any ship or junk could be found.

The three ships then returned to Hong-Kong, Helston taking Ping Sang back to the Laird with him.

Ping Sang and Dr. Fox dined that night with Helston, and that merry old Chinese gentleman, vastly pleased to be sitting once again in front of a good dinner, was amusing in the extreme.

He made even the surly Doctor smile at his adventures, and very droll were the descriptions of himself sweating along the main road to Aberdeen loaded down with sugar-canes ("Beastly stuff!I can't think why they eat it.Never knew what it was to earn a living of ten cents a day"); of being hauled along by his pigtail through a malodorous crowd of his countrymen to the police station ("Never knew I hated them before, till they began kicking me in the back"); of his struggles and protestations when the Englishman withdrew the charge and took him back to the junk; of his voyage to the island, shut down below in the stinking hold ("They didn't go across that night, but hid round a corner till the next"), and of his imprisonment on the island, where he was a guest of the same Englishman ("That man is a precious scoundrel, I tell you, and his food was worse; but he did give me some decent clothes, I'll say that for him").

The only one without a smile on his face was Jenkins, Helston's marine servant, who had persisted in accompanying his master; but this was due, as Dr. Fox well knew, to the fact that he had been ashore that afternoon, and was now assuming an air of extreme sobriety only to be accounted for by a too liberal consumption of beer.

He was an extraordinary man, this old soldier.He never went ashore without coming off half-drunk, and, as Helston often said, "he's always most drunk when he's most sober", and it was only by his preternatural solemness, or by noticing that he occasionally carried the dishes round the table at the double, that one knew that he had been making a brute of himself ashore.

Time after time Helston had dismissed him and sent him for'ard to rejoin the Marine Detachment, but always, next morning, he was stealthily creeping about Helston's cabin, folding up and brushing his clothes, and waking him at exactly the same time with "Six bells just gone, sir", and "'Ere's your cup of tea".

He had once managed to get rid of him by giving him "five days' cells", but before he had finished this punishment Helston's hair required cutting.No one could do this so well, so he was brought aft to do it, and, the job being satisfactorily concluded, Helston gave him one of his cigars, and twenty minutes to smoke it, before he was locked up again.

On the sixth morning it was "Six bells, sir, just gone, sir, and 'ere's your cup of tea", and he was now as much a permanent institution as the ship's bell or the ship's cat.

Ping Sang had gained much interesting but no valuable information from the Englishman.

"Hamilton is his name.I knew him well several years ago, before he disappeared, and he was always up to some devilment or other.If he could not manage to work for his living, he could certainly live by his wits.

"He gave me a very interesting account of his whole scheme.He, Hopkins, and the German, Schmidt—the 'Mysterious Three' of Tientsin—had put in fifty thousand dollars apiece, and many wealthy Chinese had subscribed very large sums in what he called 'our venture'.'We've done pretty well.We have quite a respectable little fleet, and have captured thirty million dollars' worth of ships and cargoes, to say nothing of the ransoms some of our prisoners have paid for their freedom.We have friends throughout the country, and our prisoners know that if they talk too much when they get back, they will get their throats cut one fine night.We have had to do it to several already—just as a warning.'

"I asked him if he did not fear capture.

"'Capture!'he laughed, highly amused.'You will never see any of us again, unless you happen to come as paying guests.Hopkins made a fool of himself, but he won't be caught napping again, and ten times your little fleet could not get into our island.'

"I asked him what became of all the crews of the many ships he had captured.Had he hanged them?

"'Hang them?Rather not!'he told me.'One or two of the first few, perhaps, but ever since, directly they see what a fine life we are having there, they volunteer to join us, and make splendid recruits.'"

"Did you discover how he was going to get back to his precious island?"asked Helston.

"No, I did not.I asked him several times, and kept my eyes and ears open, but not a thing could I discover.He had nothing there except the junk, as far as I could see, and they gave me complete liberty to go about the island as much as I liked."

"How did you spend your time?"asked Dr. Fox.

"Playing cards with him, like a fool," said Ping Sang, wreathed in smiles; "and I lost nearly ten thousand dollars, and have promised to send them ashore directly we reach his island.He is going to send a junk for them as soon as we get there, and he had the cheek, too, to ask me to bring up all the things he had left behind him in the Victoria Hotel.

"Oh yes, I promised," laughed Ping Sang; "he amused me so, I couldn't help promising him."

Dinner being over, Hunter and the Captain of the Sylvia, Commander Bannerman, came across in their galleys, and they and Cummins of the Laird joined a council of war, to determine the future plan of operations.

It was a curiously impressive little scene in Captain Helston's fore-cabin that night—the polished table littered with documents and lighted by the hanging crimson-shaded electric lamps; the grey clouds of tobacco smoke eddying among the steel deck-beams overhead and curling through the after 12-pounder gun-ports; the glitter of the polished brass-work of the gun-mountings, one on each side of the cabin—a grim reminder of war; and the serious, eager faces of Helston and his three Commanders as they bent over the various papers and argued their plans and proposals.

The last time they had all met together round that table they had drunk success to the squadron, and gaily hoped that the pirates would give them a chance of "doing something".

Now they had done something—one of their three destroyers was at the bottom, and five of her men had gone down with her; nine of the Strong Arm's men were dead (three had died of their wounds), and thirty or more were wounded—and though they had destroyed a cruiser, still she had not previously entered into their calculations, and her appearance on the scene rudely interfered with their plans and expectations of only meeting old, half-repaired Chinese men-of-war. There might be more like her, acquired secretly, and with the memory of those nine bodies waiting to be buried in the quiet cemetery in the Happy Valley next morning, and the unknown strength of the enemy they were now going to meet, the council took their places round Helston's table with a certain solemnity.

Captain Helston himself, gaunt and thin, sat at the head, his long, thin face haggard in the electric light, his right hand nervously fidgeting with some papers in front of him, and his left arm still bandaged to his side, his empty sleeve sewn across his chest.

At the other end of the table sat Hunter of the Strong Arm, a man with a great red face and great red hands, a clumsy-looking giant, more grieved at the loss of his men than elated at the destruction of the pirate cruiser.A typical bluff, good-hearted sailor was he, not devoid of brains, but seldom troubling to use them.To see him in a football "scrum", and to hear his lusty roars of encouragement to his side, did one good, and one knew immediately what kind of man he was.

Use his brains!Why?God had given him a great body which never knew fatigue, a mind which never knew fear, and he was one of the "range-up-alongside-and-blow- the-beggar-out-of-water-and-if-he-won't-sink-ram-him" school of naval officer.

Antiquated in his ideas he may have been, but he was possessed, as are most men like him, of an enormous personal magnetism, and every man Jack of his crew would follow him to the death.

On Helston's right sat Ping Sang, bubbling over with humorous details of his escapade, red in the face, his eyes twinkling with appreciation of his good dinner.As he was beautifully dressed in his favourite colour of dark claret silk, and had a gold-knobbed skull-cap of the same colour on his head, his gay attire contrasted strangely with the more sober mess jackets of the others.

As usual, he was smoking a cigar, and had in front of him a big despatch box, from which he drew rolls of papers, spreading them in front of him with a due sense of their importance.

No one who had seen him on board "No. 1" the day before, standing calmly near the after funnel under a heavy fire, could help but praise his contempt for danger; but his first remark when he was taken off in the Strong Arm's boat and saw the destroyer slide under the sea was, "There goes four hundred thousand dollars", and when it was discovered that she had carried three men down with her, in addition to the two who had been knocked overboard, all he said was, "Men very cheap; plenty more to take their places".

It was very evident that everything was precious to him except the lives of the people whom he was paying to risk their lives for the protection of his vast trade.Already Helston and the others had lost some of their first admiration for the good-natured, plucky little man, and could not feel in sympathy with a nature so completely indifferent to death and suffering.Still, he was not a European, and allowance had to be made for the stoicism and callousness of the Celestial.

Next to him sat Cummins, an odd little figure, his tie up round his ears, smoking a stale old pipe, and chuckling to himself as some humorous fancy passed through his active brain.Nothing, however solemn or tragic, but had its amusing side for him.

Opposite him, and on Helston's left, was Bannerman of the Sylvia, a tall, restless man, with light tawny hair and cleanly-trimmed beard. He had employed all his social and service influence to be appointed to Helston's squadron, and always had a grievance that the Sylvia was only a store-ship. The other Commanders chaffed him unmercifully about his four little 12-pounders—the only guns she carried—and to ask him how much coal he had for them was always sufficient to get a "rise" out of him.

He was not popular, and when in a bad temper nagged his officers and men till they in turn were white-hot with silent rage.It was always with him: "My ship moored very smartly this morning, Cummins", or "Beat you yesterday unmooring, Hunter", or some other of the two or three evolutions the store-ship could take part in.

He did not disguise his knowledge that if anything happened to Cummins or Hunter he would get the vacancy, and, though he naturally never said so in so many words, it was quite plain he looked forward to such an event occurring.

His one idea was promotion, and he would stick at nothing to obtain it, caring not at all who suffered in the process.

Dr. Fox was there too, reading the Hong-Kong Evening Mail in an easy-chair by the side of the fire, and making some caustic remark from time to time.

A strange little group of fighting men it was: Helston, broken in health, and only eager for promotion because promotion meant his marriage to little Miss Milly; Bannerman craving for it for the power in its train; big-hearted Hunter caring not a jot, so long as he got plenty of fighting; and little Cummins, caring little for anything, so long as he could work out practically his scientific theories of modern warfare.

The island occupied by the pirates was called Hong Lu—merely a small dot on the Admiralty chart, lying in the middle of the Straits of Formosa, half-way between the Pescadores and Amoy.Ping Sang had had copies made of the rough map, drawn by the English merchant captain a year ago, and passed them round.

From these it appeared that Hong Lu was about five miles long, shaped somewhat like a horse-shoe, and that the harbour, inside the loop, was connected with the sea by a narrow passage between high cliffs, formed by the curved-in ends of the island.

At the loop end there was also another outlet to the sea even more narrow than the first.

The English captain had roughly marked the places, on each side of the entrance, where he had seen them mounting guns, and Ping Sang knew that, among the cargoes of the three steamers captured outside Nagasaki eighteen months ago, there were six 6-inch modern guns and many smaller quick-firers.As these had been intended for a new Chinese fort on the Min river, and as all their mountings and ammunition had also been on board, it would be an easy matter to mount them efficiently.

"They'll give us some trouble," smiled Hunter, gleefully rubbing his big red hands together; "take any amount of hammering if the beggars only fight 'em properly."

"I only hope they won't," muttered Dr. Fox from his easy-chair."We've had quite enough poor fellows killed already, and I don't want any more work patching up the wounded."

"And here is the list of ships," continued Ping Sang.

This was the list of Chinese men-of-war which had been run ashore after the battle of the Yalu, and had apparently been salved by some Europeans—the "Mysterious Three".

It included the Yao Yuen and the Mao Yuen, sister ships, ten years old, and of about three thousand tons. Each carried two Krupp 8-inch and six 4.7-inch guns. Then there was the Tu Ping, somewhat larger and still older, carrying a 10-inch Krupp in the bows and nine 6-inch besides—all of them old-fashioned guns.

These were probably the three sighted by the English gun-boat whilst cruising in the Chusan Archipelago a few months previously.

In addition, two or three corvettes belonging formerly to the Yangtze squadron had disappeared.These, however, could never be made serviceable against modern ships.

"That little lot ought not to give us much trouble," said Hunter rather sadly; "they dare not come out and fight us in the open."

"They have ten or twelve torpedo-boats," interposed Cummins, who was a devoted believer in the possibilities of the torpedo, "and if those three destroyers, which must have been handed over by the Patagonian Government since we left them at Colombo, reach this precious island of theirs, they will give us no end of trouble."

"Yes, perhaps they will," said Hunter cheerfully."It will add to the excitement, won't it?Make a more level game, eh?'No.2' and 'No.3' ought to be pretty busy with that little lot.Almost wish I was in command of one myself."

"I should think it would make a more level game," came from behind Dr. Fox's newspaper satirically—"much more level."

"Well, what shall we do?"asked Helston."Those three destroyers have at least twelve hours' start of us, and I don't suppose it will be possible to catch them, for, of course, we cannot leave until after the funeral of your men, Hunter.Directly the funeral parties have returned we will weigh and proceed north."

"Certainly, sir, we shall be ready," replied Bannerman and Hunter, the latter, adding, "Of course, sir, I could not leave till I had buried my men."

"Excuse me, sir," interposed Cummins, chuckling in his nervous manner; "those destroyers could not take all the crew of the Hai Yen and her stores without being unseaworthy. They must have had some other ship there, and if she had been a man-of-war we should have seen something of her. Don't you think that must have been so, sir?"

"Certainly; I half suspected it myself."

"Well then, sir, they must have had a merchant steamer, and a pretty small one at that, otherwise they could not have got her in close enough to transfer all those stores in one night, the water is so shallow."

"Certainly, certainly," nodded the others.

"Therefore, if she was small, there are but few such steamers that can steam more than ten knots, and this, or more probably less, will be her speed to Hong Lu, and the destroyers would be pretty certain to convoy her, and so we might catch them as well."

"You want us to start immediately?"asked Helston.

"Certainly, sir, and at your highest speed, sending 'No.2' and 'No.3' ahead, if possible, and with luck we might bag them and Hopkins, and the lame Englishman in addition."

"But," interposed Bannerman, "your whole plan is based on mere conjecture, Cummins, and you must remember that my ship cannot steam faster than ten knots herself."

"You can come on afterwards," replied Cummins, adding maliciously, for he loved to goad Bannerman, "You won't want an escort, I suppose.Haugh!haugh!haugh!"

"Well, well," Helston interfered, seeing that Bannerman was rapidly losing his temper, "the conjecture may turn out to be incorrect, but it is better to act upon it than upon nothing at all."

"What time can you get your funeral parties on board again, Hunter?"

"Not before noon, sir; their mess-mates would never forgive me if they could not do this."

"When I turn up my toes," said Bannerman snappishly, "I don't mind what happens to me; they can chuck me overboard if they like."

"Well, old fellow," answered Hunter, "when my turn comes, I should like to know that my own men looked after me."

"Very good, gentlemen," concluded Helston. "The Strong Arm will follow the squadron, the remainder of which will leave at daybreak."

Before Hunter went back to the Strong Arm he drew Captain Helston aside and put in a good word for Pattison of the ill-fated "No. 1", but the latter shook his head: "Plucky, of course, he was, but a man in command of a destroyer wants more than pluck—brains and common sense."

"Those two midshipmen, sir, Glover and Foote, behaved with great coolness for youngsters under fire for the first time, and Harrington, who I hear is doing well in hospital, did magnificently.

"Could you manage to send Foote to 'No.3', sir?The two boys are great chums and he deserves another chance."

"All right, Hunter, I will not forget him; good-night."

Shaking hands with Helston the little council of war broke up, the Commanders going back to their ships, leaving him and Dr. Fox alone.Ping Sang was by this time sound asleep, unable to withstand the influence of his good dinner, so they left him where he sat, and the two old friends had a last pipe together before turning in.Going through the fore-cabin again before saying "good-night" they woke Ping Sang, who was still asleep with his head on the table.

He sat up with a start, and with a yell of triumph banged at the table till the tumblers rattled.

"Ho Ming's butler, the butler himself, I'll have his liver torn out if ever I can get him across to the mainland!"

"Whatever's the matter?"they both asked, thinking his dinner had had too much effect on him.

"He's that brute who betrayed me to the lame Englishman Hamilton.I felt sure that I had somewhere before seen the man who went aboard those junks so hurriedly, and that's the man—Ho Ming's butler, the white-livered scoundrel!"

He was in a frantic rage, and wanted to go ashore immediately and tell Ho Ming; but Captain Helston and Dr. Fox managed finally to calm him, and induced him to go to bed.

CHAPTER XIII

The Avenging of Destroyer "No.1"

Off in Pursuit—Horribly Sea-sick—A Neck-and-Neck Race—Commence Firing!—Running into Danger—"No.1" Avenged—The Dinghy Capsizes—Plucky Little Ogston

The Narrative is continued by Mr. Glover

We had had a jolly good day at Sin Ling Island, and Mr. Parker let me go aboard the Hai Yen with the other midshipmen, and a grand time we had scrambling about her. I brought back a scraggy cat—half-witted I think he was, for he walked about with his head on one side in the funniest manner possible, "meaowing" from morning to night. His fur was burnt off one side, but we got some ointment stuff from the medicine chest aft, and with some bandages made him ship-shape—a comical sight he looked, I can tell you.

We didn't get much sleep that night, because, after coming back, we had to fill up with coal again, get in fresh provisions, and then bring our torpedoes over from the SylviaIt was not till three o'clock that I crept into the Gunner's bunk (he was on watch), and got a couple of hours' sleep.

Then we all unmoored, and whilst I was busy seeing everything secured aft, who should come alongside but Tommy Toddles in one of the Laird's cutters. He was wildly excited, I could see, and, after reporting himself to Mr. Parker, came dancing along the deck and told me that Captain Helston had sent him to join "No. 3". We got his chest out of the boat, but there was very little room for it anywhere, and Mr. Parker, who swore very loudly when he saw it, made him take out the things he wanted most and then sent it back to the Laird

"You two youngsters will have to share the same chest," he said.But we didn't mind in the least, it was so jolly to have Tommy.

Well, "No. 2" and we shoved off and left the Strong Arm behind, looking very forlorn in the half daylight with her ensign at half-mast. It seemed quite strange, too, without "No. 1", and, when we were running past the Sylvia, we saw Mr. Pattison on the bridge, looking, we thought, very down on his luck.

Directly we were clear of Hong-Kong and were on our proper course, we were sent ahead at full speed, and then had not much time to think of anything else, for there was a big loppy sea and a strong breeze on our starboard bow.

We were doing twenty-five knots and began to get very lively.

I thought that nothing would ever make me sea-sick, but this did, and as I had nothing to do on deck, and neither Tommy nor I wanted to yarn, I crept into the Gunner's bunk again; but the Sub came down a few minutes after to get his oil-skins and found me there.He turned me out, ordered me on deck, and made me take the wheel from the quarter-master and steer.

We were pitching tremendously, our bows burying themselves up to the conning tower.Down, down they would go till I thought, with an awfully empty feeling inside me, that they would never stop.Up they would come again, tons of water pouring off them, and the wave catching her amidships would roll her over to leeward.

Roll!Why, several times I thought she would go right over, and once or twice, as we heeled, I caught hold of the edge of the bridge to steady myself; but Collins had his eye on me all the time, and cursed me pretty hard.

"Keep her into it, you young ass!Don't let her pay off like that," he said.And another time: "If you let her swing more than two points off her course again, I'll give you half a dozen over the ward-room table."

I would do my best, and would put the helm over to steady her, feeling horribly sick and dreadfully miserable, for I was wet through and very cold.

Mr. Parker came up presently in his oil-skins to relieve Collins, smoking a pipe, the very sight of which made me feel green, and after looking cheerily at "No.2", which was on our beam, and having as bad a time as ourselves, said, with his body jammed securely between the chart-table and the 12-pounder; "We shall break the old girl's back if we keep at this much longer, Collins.Give me a light, old chap; all my matches are wet through."

I devoutly wished she would break her back, and actually looked aft to see if there were any sign of such good fortune.

We slowed down shortly afterwards and fell back to the Laird; but she must have been doing nearly twenty knots, and though she did give us somewhat of a lee, we had a horrible time of it.

Mr. Parker sent me down below, and I had to hold on pretty hard to get safely aft, and I found poor Tommy lying on the after 6-pounder gratings in a worse state even than I was.

This cheered me a little.

The night was almost as bad, and though I was dead tired and wet through to the skin and longed to die, it was impossible to lie in a bunk.I was thrown out of the Sub's bunk twice—you see there were not enough bunks for all, so I had to use the one belonging to the man on watch—and spent most of the night on the deck of the ward-room, clinging to the legs of the ward-room table, till even these gave way at one extra heavy lurch.We went clattering to leeward and woke the Engineer, who kicked me out and wanted to know "What I meant by choosing that time of night to play musical chairs?"

Then I crept up on deck and held on to the after steering screen, really too frightened to go below again, we were rolling so horribly.I tell you all this just to let you know what it is like to be in a destroyer in heavy weather for the first time.People see destroyers dashing in and out of harbour, and think what a jolly life it must be on board; and so it is, too, when once you are used to it, and have learnt that they can stand on their heads one moment, roll till the sea comes half-way up to their funnels the next, and be none the worse for it.

But doesn't it want a lot of hanging on?

Tommy joined me behind the screen presently, and a miserable pair we were, I can tell you, and wished ourselves back again in the Laird, swinging in our hammocks.

In the middle watch Jones, one of our petty officers and the captain of the 12-pounder, came aft to take the log and found us there.

"'Ello, sir!what be you two young gen'lemen a-doing of there?"he said.

We gulped out that we were too scared to go below, and felt better in the fresh air.

He held up his flickering lantern."Eh!ye be sea-sick, be ye?"he said."Well, ye do look powerful green, and be as wet as water.Just come along o' me; I'll stow you away out of 'arm."

He made us climb into the dinghy, which was in her crutches amidships, told us to lie down on some coils of rope and old canvas deck-cloths, and covered us with a tarpaulin.

We huddled up together and presently got warm again, and once we were warm and steamy we soon went to sleep.

It did not seem ten minutes later before we were roughly shaken by the shoulders, and there was Jones again.

"Turn out, you young gents; just show a leg there.It's gone seven bells (half-past seven), and it's time ye were rousing yourselves."

"Looking better the noo, ye are," he said, as we scrambled out from under the tarpaulin, feeling stiff all over but the sea-sickness gone; "and 'ere's a drop of hot cocoa for you and a bit of ship's biscuit—make men of you agin."

The sea had gone down considerably and it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, and Jones was smiling in a fatherly manner at us, with a couple of ship's biscuits in one hand and a bowl of steaming cocoa in the other.

Well, I should never have believed it possible.A few hours before I thought I should never want to touch a bit of food again, and now we both felt famished, and would have gulped down the lot between us, but Jones made us eat a bit of hard biscuit first, and then sandwich in a little cocoa, and so on till there was no more left of either.

"No, there ain't no more," said Jones, "and the Captain, 'e wants to see you both as soon as you've made yourselves respectable."

He was on the bridge; and after we had brushed each other down we went for'ard, feeling awfully cheap and disreputable.

"Now, you two youngsters must understand," he began. "I'll let you off this time, but don't let me ever catch you shirking your work again, whether you are sea-sick or not. Now, go below (I think I saw a twinkle in his eye) and get some breakfast. The Laird has sighted those pirate destroyers and we are chasing them, but I shall not want either of you for half an hour, so make the best of your time."

"Where are they, sir?"we asked eagerly.

"Right ahead, but we can't see them yet. They've only just sighted them from the Laird."

The range of view from a destroyer is very limited, and it was the Laird's mast-head look-out who had discovered them.

"Couldn't we stay, sir?"we asked, forgetting all about our hunger in the excitement.

"No.Go down below; and you're not to come up again for half an hour."

Even with our excitement we managed to tuck in pretty well when at last the officers' cook did send us down something to eat—some eggs and bacon—from the galley, and we made a loaf of bread and a pot of jam look precious small before we had finished.

We waited impatiently for the thirty minutes to go by and then ran up to the bridge, and by this time could see a cloud of smoke on the horizon ahead of us.

We were tearing along with a vengeance, "No. 2" coming up astern, and the Laird several miles behind us.

A lovely morning it was, for the gale of yesterday had blown itself out, and the sea was now a beautiful glittering green, with a long, quiet swell, crested here and there with "white horses", which every now and then dashed against our bows, leapt into the air, and fell in thousands of sparkling drops over the fo'c'stle.

"No.2" kept gradually coming up, and eventually, do what we could, she drew level, and neck and neck we raced, not fifty yards apart.

Tommy and I could hardly keep still with excitement, and I felt as if I was tingling all over.Neither Mr. Parker nor Mr. Lang of "No.2" had as yet been under fire, and now was their chance to avenge poor "No.1"; and they were going to do it, too, if only the engines did their best.

And splendidly they whizzed round, and we were going even faster than when we chased the destroyer outside Colombo.

We now could see that there was a small merchant steamer with the pirates, almost hidden in smoke, but she seemed to be lagging behind, and presently we saw that the destroyers were steaming away from her.

"They're leaving her to her fate," said Mr. Parker, and half an hour later we caught her up, and went flying past near enough to see one stolid-looking man on her bridge staring solemnly at us.She was only an old tub of a merchantman, very deep in the water, wallowing along like a porpoise, and showing her bottom covered with barnacles and green growth as she rolled.

"She probably has the crew of the Hai Yen aboard," Mr. Parker told us, "and the Laird will catch her in an hour."

We left her as if she had been at anchor, "No.2" forging ahead a little, whilst Mr. Lang roared insulting remarks to Mr. Parker through the megaphone, and the Sub dangled the end of their grass hawser over the stern and asked if we wanted a tow—the most deadly insult they could give.

We were now coming up to the three pirates, one of which seemed unable to keep up with the others and was falling back rapidly, whilst the other two, like huge porpoises, went rushing on.

By this time we had gone to quarters, and were standing by our guns.Tommy had to do doggy to Mr. Parker and run messages; I had to look after the for'ard 6-pounders, one on each side under the bridge.

The men took off their boots so that they could grip the deck more firmly with their bare feet, stripped off their jumpers, and stood to their guns, eagerly waiting, with rows of cartridges in the racks behind them.

Down where I was, with "No.2" right ahead, I could not see the pirates, but almost immediately the signalman above me shouted: "They've fired, sir!"and in the twinkling of a second a shell, missing "No.2", fell into the water close under our bows, and, bursting, covered one gun's crew with spray.

"Me mither told me niver to git wet," said the funny man of the crew, ruefully shaking himself.

"Put your big feet up, then, and keep it off, Bill," shouted one, and "Take off your 'at, 'twill make yer 'air grow", shouted another.

"Shall we load, sir?"asked the Captain of the gun, a little grey-eyed man named Clarke.

I told him to wait for orders, and so we hung on, and as plenty more shells came whistling past, the men became rather restless, the ammunition numbers picking up the cartridges and waiting for the signal to load.

The order seemed a tremendously long time coming, but "No.2", sheering across our bows to port, gave us a good view of the pirate, and commenced firing herself.

At last Tommy, putting his head over the bridge screen, shouted down; "Stand by!""Close up!"I yelled to the two guns' crews, and the captains of the guns, with their chin-stays gripped between their teeth, jumped to their shoulder-pieces, pressing well home, glued their eyes to the sights, and, with feet wide apart, stood ready, keeping their sights on the destroyer.

Down went the breech-blocks with a snap, in rattled the cartridges, up went the blocks again, and "Ready!"yelled the breech numbers.

"Range 1500 yards!"yelled Tommy from the bridge overhead in a funny, squeaky, excited voice, and directly afterwards I heard Mr. Parker give the order "Commence!"to Jones of the 12-pounder gun.

Tommy passed the order down to us, and with a whoop of joy the men jumped to their guns.

My aunt, what a row there was!

Destroyer "No.2" was now well ahead of us, and as she gradually drew abreast of the pirate destroyer she got four guns to bear—the 12-pounder on the bridge, the 6-pounder just beneath it on the starboard side, the 6-pounder on the beam amidships, and the 6-pounder on the platform aft.

We could see the fierce little spurts of flames darting out, and thought she hit the pirate several times.

We too were firing very fast, and were trying to rake her stern, hoping to be able to knock away some of her rudder gear.

The pirate was dividing her attention between us, but was shooting very wildly and could not touch us; and no wonder, for presently "No.2" had even forged ahead of her, and we could every now and then see shells bursting against her funnels and cowls and under her bridge.We all yelled with delight.

Her shooting became very feeble, and we could see the guns' crews trying to sneak away down below; but a big man, with a great black beard, and dressed as an officer, kept on driving them back, exposing himself with great bravery.

It was wonderful that he was not hit, and really, if we had been superstitious we should have thought that he bore a charmed life.But now "No.2" had forged right ahead and was settling down after the other two destroyers, leaving this one entirely to us.

Was not that a gentlemanly thing for Mr. Lang to do?

Now that they were no longer under a cross fire, the pirates took courage again, and their shells began whistling past us in dozens.We did work hard at our guns, I can tell you, and hit her many times, but never seemed able to reach a vital spot, for we were plunging and shaking into the long swell, and it was awfully difficult to keep our sights steady.

Just then there was a faint cheer from the pirate, and we could see those still left on deck waving their arms and pointing ahead.

Tommy came jumping down the ladder in a tremendous state of excitement.

"The island of Hong Lu is in sight," he said, "and a cruiser is coming out to their rescue.Mr. Parker says we can't possibly carry on for more than ten minutes longer, and he's going to steer in more closely.You have to fire at her water-line between her funnels and try and disable her boilers."

All our guns were turned on this part, and we gradually edged in till we were not fifty yards away; but encouraged to renewed exertions by the chance of a rescue, they fired still more vigorously, and at that distance could not help hitting us.One shell bursting nearly amidships, wounded two men standing there, another pierced our foremost funnel, tearing a great rent in it, and a third burst against the conning tower, within ten feet of where I was standing, and though it stunned us for the moment, smothered us with smoke, and little pieces of it went flying round, no one was hit.

That was about their last shot, for they could take no more punishment.Ten or twelve had already been knocked over, and we could see them lying in huddled heaps on the deck.The rest took shelter below, crowding down the small hatchways, till we could see no one except the big officer.

"That cruiser is getting jolly close," said Tommy, who had been sent down to see what damage that last shell had done, "and 'No.2' is coming back as fast as she can."

I could just see the big cruiser coming along under a dense cloud of smoke, not more than 6000 yards off, firing at "No.2" as she flew back towards us.

I thought that Mr. Lang had had enough of it and was running away, and wondered how Mr. Parker dare carry on, but not a bit of it.Round came "No.2", and circling about our stern, she stationed herself just astern of the pirate destroyer, on her other quarter, plugging at her for all she was worth, and then I saw that we were both safe for the next few minutes.You see we were all three in a bunch, and the cruiser could not fire without risk of hitting her own destroyer.

We ran like this, firing into her as hard as we could—we on one side, "No.2" on the other—and now our shooting began to take effect.The pirate began to slacken speed; we could see wide rents in her side and water pouring in.

"Keep at it, men, for another minute," shouted Mr. Parker, and we poured in a regular stream of shells.

One or two of these just did the trick (we never found out which fired it, but Jones claimed it for his 12-pounder, and "No.2" was equally certain it was her shot), for suddenly a great volume of smoke and steam rushed up from her deck, her mast and foremost funnel went over the side, and her deck opened in a great gap, as if she had broken her back.

We gave a great cheer, and heard "No.2" cheering wildly too.

It was just about time, for the cruiser was now not two thousand yards off, and began blazing at us, apparently not caring whether she hit her own destroyer or not, now that she could not possibly get away.

One shell fell into the water just between us, and went ricocheting away with a loud hissing noise.

We had to leave her, and quickly too; so wheeling round we steered to pick up the Laird again, which now was out of sight, firing a parting broadside, which made Mr. Parker sing out, "Cease firing, men, cease firing; she's had enough, she's sinking!"

Didn't the cruiser give it to us then!Big shot came pitching all round us with the noise of an express train, and little ones went past with a "flipping" sound.How it was we were never hit I cannot imagine to this day, for she was really making splendid practice in that first five minutes, and I don't think I have ever felt in so much of a funk since, for, you see, if but one of those big shells had come aboard, it would have been death for everybody, and we should have sunk before we could have said "Jack Robinson".

But our great speed soon took us out of accurate range, and then we were practically safe, except from any chance shot.

The cruiser must have seen the Laird before we did, for she soon gave up the chase and left us alone; and mighty glad we were, too, I can tell you, and went to "clean guns" and cleared up the deck. It was littered with empty cartridge cases, in spite of many which had rolled or been thrown overboard. The two wounded men had been attended to long before this, but there was nothing very serious wrong with them, just flesh wounds from small bits of shell.

Looking back we saw that the other two destroyers had returned, and were standing by the one we had crippled; but they could not save her, for suddenly she turned turtle and disappeared, our men breaking out into cheers again.

"I hope they managed to save that big chap," Tommy said, and Mr. Parker, hearing him, added, "I hope so too; I should jolly well like to shake hands with that man."

We ran back safely to the Laird, and found her standing by the little merchant steamer, which was rolling heavily in the long swell, had a great list to port, and was apparently sinking.

We had heard no guns fired, so could not make out quite what had happened; but the Laird had evidently boarded the steamer, for, as we came in sight of her, she was hoisting her two life-boats (cutters), and it turned out that directly she had heard the report of heavy guns in our direction, she had recalled the boats which she had sent across and was coming to our rescue, judging that we had been attacked by something bigger than a destroyer.

We went as near the Laird as was safe, and sent across the two wounded men, much against their will, I must say, for they thought that once they were sent to the Laird they would never get a chance of rejoining "No. 3", and everyone expected that the destroyers would see most of the fighting.

Tommy took them over in the whaler, and as he got alongside the Laird's after accommodation-ladder, her crew came crowding to the side and gave three cheers, for by this time they had heard that we had sunk one of the pirates.

Whilst Tommy was away the little steamer gave one or two heavy lurches to port, lifted her bows out of the water, just as if she had been alive, and was struggling to keep her head up, and then sank.

Poor little thing!She had probably been thumping her way up and down the Chinese coast for years till she had fallen into the hands of the pirates, and you could not help feeling sorry for her.

By this time the Laird had lowered her boats again, and they pulled over to where we could see a lot of heads bobbing about in the water, and were evidently trying to save some of the struggling wretches.

A signal was semaphored across to us, and we had to get out our dinghy and go to their assistance as well.I went in charge with a volunteer crew, consisting of Jones, our petty officer, and another man, and hard work it was in that clumsy boat, nearly as broad as she was long, to pull across to where the steamer had sunk.

We could do no good either, for the Chinese would not let us save them, and it was dangerous work in that cranky boat getting hold of them with a boat-hook and trying to haul them over the gunwale against their will.They probably thought that we should torture them, and preferred a quick death by drowning to mutilation, of which a Chinaman has a terrible dread.

One we had nearly dragged on board, and all three of us were tugging at him, when a wave lopped in over the gunwale.We filled with water, and before we knew what had happened we were all struggling in the water, still gripping hold of the wretched Chinaman.

"Let the brute go!"I shouted, as soon as I got my head above water, and we swam to the dinghy and clung on to her keel.It was a jolly uncomfortable position, for the water was very cold, and the waves kept washing over us, and it was mighty hard work clinging to that three inches of wood keel.

With all my clothes on, and my boots too, I seemed to weigh a ton, and but for Jones catching hold of me every now and then whenever a wave came along I should have been washed away.

We were not left there long, though, for one of the Laird's cutters was quite close and came alongside, dropping down from wind'ard, Mellins—good old Mellins—with a grin of delight, standing up in the stern and taking care that we were not struck by the oars.

They hauled us aboard, and then we got hold of the dinghy's painter and towed her back to "No.3".Mellins, being a chum of mine, and an awfully good chap, first hunted round and fished all her bottom boards and her sculls and boat-hook out of the water, for I dare not go back without them, because Mr. Parker would have been so angry.

We all were horribly cold by the time we scrambled up the side of "No.3", and, never thinking of anything else except to change into dry things, I was just going to dive down below, when Mr. Parker hallooed out to me; "Hoist your boat immediately, you young idiot!I'll teach you to capsize my dinghy!"

We got it inboard presently, working at the little derrick winch till we were almost warm again, and then I ran down to Mr. Parker's cabin to report "all correct"."He really ought to be rather pleased", I thought, for we had lost none of the boat's gear; but I had forgotten that I was still dripping with water, and wherever I stood a puddle of water formed immediately.

Mr. Parker, seeing the mess I was making on his cabin deck, flew into a great rage, and ordered me to go on deck, take all my things off, and then report to him."What the dickens do you mean by making my cabin in such a state?"

It didn't take a minute to slip off all my sloppy clothes, and I went down again with nothing on but my cap, which somehow or other had stuck on my head all the time I was in the water.

"You've lost everything out of her, I suppose?"he said angrily, though he seemed rather amused at my appearance."Here I send you away to pick up people, and you have the cheek to capsize my boat and make yourself and 'No.3' a laughing-stock!"

"I'm very sorry, sir," I told him, "but they did struggle so, and we didn't lose anything out of her, sir, not even her stern grating; we picked them all up."

"All right, Glover, don't do it again."

You can imagine that, as I stood there shivering, with my cap in my hand and not a stitch of clothes on, I wasn't very anxious to repeat the experiment.

"I didn't intend you to report to me like that," he added, smiling again."Now, dry yourself," and he threw me one of his big bath-towels, "and when you are dry, climb into my bunk and get warm."

He went on deck, and it was glorious rubbing myself dry till my skin glowed, and Tommy came down with my pyjamas and a bucket of red-hot pea soup he had got from the men's galley.

It wasn't long before I was jolly snug under Mr. Parker's blankets, and then Tommy told me of a very plucky thing that had happened. They had told him about it when he went aboard the Laird with our wounded men.

It seems that when the Laird had overhauled the steamer, many of the crew jumped overboard and were drowned, nor would she stop her engines till the Laird had sent a shot across her bows and then another into her bridge.

This brought her to, and a couple of boats, with their crews armed, were sent across to take charge of her.

They found, as had been imagined, that the crew of the Hai Yen were aboard, but they made no resistance, and our people signalled over for some stokers and engine-room hands to work the engines.

Little Ogston, the assistant engineer—I told you before what a jolly little chap he is, and how clever—went over in charge of them, and by the time they got aboard something had evidently gone wrong with the steamer, for she seemed to be sinking.

They found that the Chinese captain had opened all his flooding valves and under-water openings, and that the engine-room and stokehold were half-full of water.

They could not close them, for the fittings were now below the water, but little Ogston made one of the Chinese stokers show him more or less where the opening and closing gear was, and what did he do but strip off his things and dive under the water, which had now risen almost as high as the cylinders, and was finding its way into the other compartments of the ship, fore and aft.

The engine-room was quite dark, Tommy told me, and there was fifteen feet of water swishing about among the machinery as she lurched from side to side, and all the grease and filth from the bilges was floating about in it.

Just fancy having the pluck to dive into that in the dark, knowing that it was only a question of a few minutes before the ship would sink!

Of course it was useless, and Ogston was jolly well exhausted after he had made three attempts.They had to carry him on deck and do the artificial respiration dodge before he came round.

He then wanted the diving apparatus sent across from the Laird, and he would have gone down again in the diver's dress had not they all been recalled to the LairdThat was when she heard the pirate cruiser's heavy guns, guessed we'd run up against something big, and was coming along after us.

"So you see," Tommy finished up dolefully, "they had to leave the steamer, which was chock-full of stores, ammunition, and the Hai Yen's small guns, and now everything has gone to the bottom. But wasn't it jolly plucky of Ogston? They're awfully proud of him down in the gun-room, and are going to give him a mess dinner to-night and a sing-song afterwards. Don't you wish we could go?"

"Rather!"I said; but it turned out that there was something to do that night much more exciting than a sing-song.