"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
He pulled a packet from under his pillow, wrapped round in Korean oiled
cloth. "That's my will, Glover. I want to sign it. You'll find a pen
and ink on that table over there. Get it."
I brought pen and ink and unwrapped the package. I found a few
legal-looking papers, and a sheet of the _Laird's_ mess note-paper
dropped out, with "H.I.M.S. _Laird_" printed on it. As I picked up this
I saw written on it, "My Last Will and Testament".
"We shall want another witness," he said, "to do those lawyers out of a
haul;" and he beat on the wall with a split bamboo.
His butler or head boy came hurriedly in with a scared face. Hopkins
could not sit up in bed, so I held the paper against a book whilst he
signed his name, "Reginald S. Hopkins, late U.S.N.", and then I added my
own name and the head boy his, first in Chinese characters and then in a
rough school-boy hand in English, "Hi Ling".
"Promise me, Glover, to hand that to the Admiral."
"To the Admiral?" I said. "To Milly's father?"
"Yes, youngster; I've left her all I possess, and it's a tidy big lump,"
he added.
"But!" I gasped. Milly could not take his money--a pirate's money, I
thought.
He guessed my thoughts and winced, but added with a grim smile:
"Every cent is as clean as it ever is on the New York Exchange. My
guv'nor made it in oil, and that's what's left of it. The Admiral won't
smell nothing worse than oil, I reckon, in those greenbacks, for I've
never had fingers on them."
"How can I take it to Milly?" I asked. "Are you going to send me back
to the Commander?"
"Guess not," he smiled faintly. "Those docu-ments won't be dispatched
that way, I reckon. They're hurrying up with spades to bury that little
lot right away. Back you go to the _Laird_ as fast as I can send you.
I've got a destroyer waiting for you, with her boilers near bursting,
and two thousand dollars I've promised those wretched cowards aboard her
when they bring back a receipt for you from Helston. The weather is
pretty bad, but she'll stand it, and I'll die more easy when I know
you're safe aboard that packet. And you'll take Hi Ling too, in case
there's any legal rumpus concerning that signature.
"Will you do this for me, youngster?"
I hated going back to the ship without the Commander and his men, but if
he would not send me back to them there was no help for it; and,
besides, I wanted to do what I could for him.
"If you won't send me back to the Commander, I'll take them aboard and
promise to hand them to the Admiral," I said.
Hi Ling had gone away, but now returned with two of the sailors who had
captured me. They brought a great blue cotton cloth and began to wrap
me in it, whilst Hi Ling talked excitedly to Hopkins, evidently in great
distress.
"He doesn't want to leave me," Hopkins said. "I've nobody else to look
after me."
"But you can't be left alone," I said; "they might kill you."
"Not till I've got that receipt from Helston," he answered grimly,
pulling a revolver from under the bedclothes.
The blue-jackets prepared to lift me on their shoulders, and I hurriedly
shook hands with Hopkins, not daring to look at his face.
They lifted me up and took me out of the room, but I heard him call out,
and they put me down. He called me, and I went back.
His face was rigid with pain and sorrow. "Glover, youngster," and he
clenched my hand, "tell her I loved her; tell her I love her now; tell
her that I died fighting. I led that charge well? I did, did I not?
Tell her that."