"I am going to give him some money, and send him ashore to buy
provisions. If he is dishonest he will not come back."
"But he will come back," I said confidently.
"We shall see, my lad," he replied; and once more he was silent, after
handing the tiller to me, and looking back longingly at the two junks,
which were apparently making no way, for the wind was blowing dead now
into the mouth of the river.
Early as it was, there were people stirring as we approached the
landing-place Ching had pointed out, and he nodded with satisfaction.
"Allee light," he said, smiling. "Get plenty blead, meat. You fillee
big tub with water;" and he pointed to a large rough vessel, and another
which was a great earthenware jar.
"But where are we to get the water?" I said.
"Out o' liver. Plenty water in liver."
"We can't drink that peasoup," I said, as I looked over the side in
disgust at the yellow solution of mud.
"Velly good water. Allee salt gone now. Plenty clear by and by."
"We must make the best of it, Herrick," said my companion; and then
turning to Ching, he said rather sternly--
"Here are eight dollars: buy as much bread and cooked meat as you can,
and get back as quickly as possible, when we set you ashore."
Ching nodded and smiled.
"Be velly quick," he said; "and you take boat lit' way out, and stop
till come back."
"Of course; trust us for that, my man."
Ten minutes later we ran alongside some rough bamboo piles, to which
about half-a-dozen Chinamen hurried, to stand staring at us. But Ching
paid no attention to them. He only made a leap from the boat when we
were a couple of yards from the platform, landed safely but with tail
flying, and his blue cotton garment inflating balloon-like with the
wind. Then he walked away among the houses, and one of our men pushed
the boat off again, evidently to the intense wonder of the people, who
stared hard to see a British sailor managing a native vessel; while two
others, in a costume perfectly new to them, sat looking on.
Then our men were packed out of sight, some in the little cabin, others
hidden at the bottom of the boat, beneath a matting-sail.
When we were about a hundred yards from the shore, a clumsy wooden
grapnel, to which a heavy stone was bound with a twisted rope of bamboo,
was dropped overboard, and then we lay in the swift tide, with the boat
tugging at the line as if eager to be off on the chase the stern
necessity concerning food kept us from carrying on at once.
"How these people do seem to detest us, Herrick!" said Mr Brooke, after
we had been waiting patiently for about a quarter of an hour,
impatiently another, but not quite in idleness, for, after tasting the
river water to find that it was very slightly brackish now, the tub and
the jar were both filled and left to settle.
"Yes, they're not very fond of us," I replied, as I noted how the
numbers were increasing, and that now there was a good deal of talking
going on, and this was accompanied by gesticulations, we evidently being
the objects of their interest. "They can't have much to do."
Mr Brooke made no reply, but moment by moment he grew more uneasy, as
he alternately scanned the people ashore and the junks in the offing.
"Oh," I said at last, "if we could only see the _Teaser_ coming up the
river!"
"I'd be content, Herrick," said Mr Brooke bitterly, "if we could only
see the messenger coming back with our stores."
"Yes," I said uneasily, for I had been fidgeting a good deal; "he is a
long time."
"Yes," said Mr Brooke, looking at me very fixedly, till I avoided his
gaze, for I knew he was thinking of my defence of Ching.
"Perhaps the bakers' shops are not open," I said at last.
"Perhaps this is not London, my lad. It's of no use for you to defend
him; I begin to feel sure that he has left us in the lurch."
"Oh, wait a little longer, please, Mr Brooke," I cried; and I vainly
scanned the increasing crowd upon the platform and shore, and could see,
instead of Ching, that the people were growing more and more excited, as
they talked together and kept pointing at us.
"I shall not wait much longer," said Mr Brooke at last. "He has had
plenty of time. Look here, my lads, we have plenty of water, and the
business is urgent. You'll have to be content with a drink and a pull
at your waistbelts."
"All right, sir," said the coxswain; "what's good enough for the
orficers is good enough for us. We won't grumble, eh, mates?"
There was a low growl here, but not of discontent.
"Then in another five minutes, if our Celestial friend does not come
back, we shall start. I'll give him that time."
"Beg pardon, sir; they're a siggling of us."
"Signalling! who are?"
"The Chinees, sir."
"Yes, look," I said; for, after a good deal of talking and shouting, one
man was standing close at the edge of the landing-place, and beckoning
to us to come closer in.
"Likely," I heard one of our men whisper. "Ducks."
"Eh?" said another.
"Dill, dill, dill; will yer come and be killed?"
"What do they want, Herrick? To inveigle us ashore?"
"I know, sir for the reason of their excitement now came to me like a
flash, and I wondered that I had not thought of it before."
"Well, then. Speak out if you do know, my lad."
"That's it, sir. We've got a boat they know, and they think we're
stealing it."
"Tut, tut, tut. Of course. That explains it. Very sorry, my friends,
but we cannot spare it yet. You shall have her back and be paid for the
use of it, when we've done with her."
The shouts, gesticulations, and general excitement increased, two men
now beckoning imperiously, and it was evident that they were ordering us
to come to the landing-place at once.
"No, my friends," said Mr Brooke, "we are not coming ashore. We know
your gentle nature too well. But Ching is not coming, Herrick, so we'll
heave up the grapnel and be off."
The crowd was now dense, and the excitement still increasing, but the
moment they saw our coxswain, in obedience to an order given by Mr
Brooke--in spite of an appealing look, and a request for another ten
minutes--begin to haul up the rough grapnel, the noise ashore was
hushed, and the gesticulations ceased.
"Five minutes more, Mr Brooke," I whispered; "I feel sure that Ching
will come."
"Silence, sir," he said coldly. "It is only what I expected. The man
knows he is found out."
By this time the boat was hauled up over the grapnel, and I shrank away
in despair, feeling bitterly disappointed at Ching's non-appearance, but
full of confidence in him--faith the stronger for an intense desire to
make up to the man for misjudging him before.
Then the grapnel was out of the mud, and hauled over the side; the boat
began to yield to the tide; and Mr Brooke stepped to the mast himself,
being unwilling to call the men in the cabin into the people's sight.
"Come and take a hand at the rope here, coxswain," said Mr Brooke.
"Mr Herrick, take the tiller."
But at the first grasp of our intention, as they saw the preparation for
hoisting the sail, there was a fierce yell from the shore, and the
people scattered to right and left.
"What does that mean?" I said to myself. But the next instant I knew,
for they were making for different boats, into which they jumped, and
rapidly began to unmoor.
"Humph! time we were off," said Mr Brooke. "Hoist away, man, I cannot
do it alone."
"I am a-hysting, sir, but the tackle's got foul somehow. It's this here
rough rope. The yard won't move."
"Tut tut--try, man, try."
"All right, sir, I'll swarm up the the mast, and set it free."
"But there is no time, my man. Haul--haul."
The man did haul, but it was like pulling at a fixed rope, and the sail
obstinately refused to move, while to my horror there were no less than
six boats pushing off, and I foresaw capture, a Chinese prison, and
severe punishment--if we could not get help--for stealing a boat.
"All hands on deck," cried Mr Brooke, making use of the familiar
aboard-ship order, and just as the first two boats were coming rapidly
on, and were within a dozen yards, our Jacks sprang up armed and ready.
The effect was magical. Evidently taken by surprise, the Chinamen
stopped short, and the boats all went on drifting slowly down the
stream. But at the end of a minute, as we made no attack, but all stood
awaiting orders, they recovered their confidence, uttered a shout to
encourage one another, and came on.
"I don't want to injure them," Mr Brooke muttered, but he was forced to
act. "Give them the butts of your pieces, my lads, if they try to lay
hold of the boat. Mind, they must be kept off."
He had no time to say more, but seized the fowling-piece as the first
boat was rowed alongside, and amidst a fierce burst of objurgations, in
a tongue we could not understand, a couple of men seized the gunwale of
the boat, while two more jumped aboard.
The men who caught hold let go again directly, for the butts of the
men's rifles and the gunwale were both hard for fingers, and the Chinese
yelled, and the two who leaped aboard shrieked as they were seized and
shot out of the boat again.
But by this time another craft of about our own size had come alongside,
and was hanging on to us, while four more were trying to get in, and
others were pushing off from the shore.
We were being surrounded; and, enraged by our resistance, while gaining
courage from their numbers and from the fact that we made no use of
cutlass or rifle, they now made desperate efforts to get aboard.
Our men were getting desperate too, and in another minute there must
have been deplorable bloodshed, the more to be regretted as it would
have been between our sailors and a friendly power, when Jecks, after
knocking a Chinaman back into his own boat with his fist, stooped and
picked up the boat-hook we had brought on board from our now sunken
cutter. With this he did wonders, using it like a cue, Barkins
afterwards said, when I described the struggle, and playing billiards
with Chinese heads. But, be that as it may, he drove back at least a
dozen men, and then attacked one of the boats, driving the pole right
through the thin planking and sending the water rushing in.
But we were still in imminent danger of being taken prisoners, and, as
he afterwards told me, Mr Brooke was thinking seriously of sending a
charge of small-shot scattering amongst the crowd, when two of our lads
seized the sheet and began to try and hoist the matting-sail, and to my
intense delight I saw it begin to go up as easily as could be.
I flew to the tiller, but found a big Chinaman before me, and in an
instant he had me by the collar and was tugging me over the side. But I
clung to it, felt a jerk as there was a loud rap, and, thanks to Tom
Jecks, the man rolled over into the water, and began to swim.
"Now for it, my lads," shouted Mr Brooke. "All together; over with
them!"
The men cheered and struck down with the butts of their rifles, the
boat-hook was wielded fiercely, and half-a-dozen of our assailants were
driven out of the boat, but not into the others, for they fell with
splash after splash into the river. For our vessel careened over as the
sail caught the full pressure of the wind, and then made quite a bound
from the little craft by which she was surrounded.
Then a cheer arose, for we knew we could laugh at our enemies, who were
being rapidly left behind; and, while some dragged their swimming
companions into their boats, the others set up a savage yelling;
gesticulating, and no doubt telling us how, if they caught us, they
would tear us into little bits.
"Well done, my lads," cried Mr Brooke. "Splendid, splendid. Couldn't
have been better. Excellent, Mr Herrick; ease her a little, ease her.
We must have a reef in that sail. All left behind, then; no pursuit?"
and he looked astern as our boat rushed through the water, and then he
frowned, for one of the men said--
"Yes, sir; here's one on 'em from the shore coming arter us full sail,
and she's going as fast as we."
And once more, as I looked behind me, holding on the while by the
tiller, I seemed to see the inside of a Chinese prison after we had been
pretty well stoned to death; for it was a good-sized boat that was
gliding after us at a rapid rate, and threatening to overtake us before
long.