“ Travers and Jim and I simply tore along. We hadn't more than four men with us, because the others, with their rifles in their hands, were not able to run so fast; but I don't think anybody would have stopped, even if he had been alone, and the mob had been twice as big. You thought of nothing but pretty little Sally Hobbs with her great eyes and her cropped hair. Suddenly, from a street on our left, darted a tall figure, brandishing a sword and followed by twenty or thirty more. ”

“ The guns were all painted a dirty grey, so didn't show up at all, but just what Scroggs had expected happened. The junk all at once luffed up, shot up into the wind, came on to an even keel, her great sails began flapping, we could see men pouring up from below, and four white clouds of smoke shot out from her port side, and before we could say "knife", there were four splashes in the water behind us, and one shot came ricochetting over us, humming like a top, and fell into the sea ahead of us. ”

“ I woke the Skipper. "That German, Hoffman, has come aboard, sir. Says he knows where Sally is and Travers."
"What?" roared the Skipper, opening his eyes.
"That German chap Hoffman has come aboard, sir."
"Well, don't wake me," he grunted, not hearing me properly.
"He's that man we thought had been burnt in the Mission House. He knows where Hobbs and Sally and Travers are," I repeated in a louder voice; and he jumped out of his bunk, swearing angrily, "Why didn't you tell me before?" and roared for "Willum" to help him dress. "Bring him aft in five minutes' time," he growled. ”

“ In the middle of last night a band of men had swooped through the village and set fire to the huts. Whilst the frightened people were trying to escape or put out the fires, they'd cut the mooring ropes of a junk lying close inshore, and had sailed away. It was their only junk, too, and the poor brutes were absolutely ruined. Before we left the village they'd all come back, and were moaning and wringing their hands, but doing nothing to help themselves. I shall never forget one poor old woman, just a wrinkled bag of bones she was, sitting on a stone in front of one of the half-burnt huts. ”

“ I was so mad at being such a coward, that I think I would have run straight at them if they had gone on shooting, just to show the men that I could run just as fast that way; but they had left off, and were only shouting at us from the darkness behind the huts. I felt most horrid, and wondered what the Captain would think when Captain Marshall told him. I knew that he would tell him—"hee-hawing" like a grampus, and thinking it a tremendous joke.
"May I take six men out there, sir, out to the right, creep round in the dark, and see if I can find them? Do let me, sir!" ”

“ There wasn't to be any war, and she took us all down to Hong-Kong, and we found the old Tyne there, which made me think of the first time I had seen her, and of how miserable and happy, in turns, I had been on board her.
But just ahead of the Tamar was the Ringdove, quite close to where we made fast to one of the outer buoys, and when she was swung by the tide in one position, we could see that Chinese gun just at the foot of her main mast.
That made us all "bristle" up again and get most frightfully angry. ”

“ You can understand the fright of these poor wretches, as they beat or drifted through the narrow channels, burning joss-sticks on their high poops, to implore the protection of one of their sea gods, and scuttling down below in abject fear when a pirate junk swooped down on them like a hawk, showing no mercy and giving no quarter, if any resistance was offered. ”

“ Old Mayhew, our boss doctor man, wouldn't say where the bullet really was. Why, bless your soul, he wasn't going to give himself away, not he, and hung round Truscott's cabin with a face as long as a jews' harp whilst he was outside it, and as round and smiling as a Dutch cheese with a slice out of it when he went in.
It was all because that silly young ass Ford saw "red" that night we landed with my chaps to have a bit of a plugging match, whilst Whitmore went off with a No. 9 detonator and something in the gun-cotton "line" to blow a gun of sorts. ”

“ I saw her Captain and Ching pacing gloomily up and down the poop, and it was very pleasant to see their faces open out again when they heard the news, and that their country's honour was not to be disturbed.
Ching gripped me by the hand—"You English, sir,"—and the muscles of his face were working strangely—"do not understand how these things, these slights, and—these little insults to our country hurt us. All you Western nations think we have no such love and pride of country as you have, and do not feel it. We do, sir! We do!" ”

“ I knew Ching a good deal better after that. He had done more fighting than I ever hoped to have the luck to do, and when one's job is to fight, and one gets paid to keep oneself ready for it, one always admires a man who has earned his pay.
Ching took me into his cabin once, a strange kind of barn, half Chinese and half English, with two old faded photographs hanging on the bulkheads, one of the Inflexible and the other of her Mids, Ching in the middle, and Lawrence, a fat little chubby-faced youth, by his side. ”

“ At last the great day of paying off did arrive, the white ensign and the pendant were hauled down, and we all began scattering to the winds.
Everyone said goodbye to everyone else, and I shook hands with dear "Old Lest".
"Umph! Where are you going?" he asked.
"Going to march the detachment into barracks, sir."
"Umph! I know that. What are you doing with your leave?"
"Going up to Scotland, sir."
"Umph!" he growled. "That's it, is it? When you get tired of Scotland, come down and get a bit of shooting with 'Blucher' and me. The missus will be glad to see you." ”

“ Mayhew used to come to my cabin half a dozen times a day, feel my pulse, and take my temperature. "Hungry still, Commander?" he would say, and smile and go away, and each time I would watch his face to see if the smile was only there to cover his real feelings. No one who has not been through a time like this can imagine how awful is the suspense.
On the morning after the Skipper had come back with the landing parties, bringing Sally, her father, young Ford, and our missing men with him, Mayhew found my temperature and pulse normal. He gave a whoop. ”

“ We crept about in the dark without making any noise, could presently hear the hands "turning out" aboard the Ringdove, and took our places in the cutter and waited to shove her off. When it was light enough to just see the rocks, Mr. Rashleigh called out that he was not going to weigh for another half-hour, and there we had to sit, and the longer we waited the less brave we felt—at any rate, I felt. I don't believe that anyone can feel brave on a dark cold morning. ”

“ Then I saw a commotion in the crowd, and suddenly that big German, who had come on board once with Mr. Hobbs, and beaten the Captain at weight-lifting, burst through and rushed past me, his face all drawn and haggard. "She's lost, mein Gott! She's lost! Too late!" and he dashed into the burning house, and I heard him roaring, "Sally!"
Jim Rawlings came up panting and asking for ten men, and disappeared with them among the sparks and smoke, into the darkness behind the house, which was now a mass of flames from top to bottom, with big flames licking out from every window. The heat was intense. ”

“ I am the captain of the Sally, converted junk, two guns, tender to H.M.S. Ringdove, and who, do you think, is my first lieutenant? Why, Dicky Morton, "Dear Little Dicky" of all chaps in the world, and he's turning out not to be half such a silly fool as he looks—I often tell him so, just to buck him up. ”

“ God help us, sir!" Sharpe groaned, and left off hacking at the chain, and began to try and cut away the side of the poop where the grappling iron had fixed itself; but the edge of the axe was all blunted, and would hardly even cut wood. It was perfectly awful, and you could see the cruel brutes in the bows of the fourth junk hauling in the rope, hand over hand. They thought that they had caught us, and were making the most tremendous noise, shouting and yelling. ”

“ Mayhew had replied fierily. "You've only been a 'dog watch' in the service, and when you know something about it, you'll know that you are wrong. Why, man, he's the best Skipper to serve under in the whole blessed navy. Call him bad tempered! Why, great snakes! that's the temper coming out of him instead of being bottled up. It's only fools and rotters who have tempers that don't come out." ”

“ I looked, and saw that we had the White Ensign flying from the mizzen peak. Dicky and I grinned with delight. We'd been told not to hoist it—they'd not even given us one—but there it was—grand!
"I did that, sir," the signalman said bashfully. "Stole it aboard the Vig., sir," and he grinned, and everybody grinned at everybody else, and looked to see what damage that round shot had done, just for curiosity.
My aunt! we did just bubble through the water, half burying our bows; the breeze must have freshened up without our noticing it. ”

“ People began firing; there was the noise of hundreds of feet rushing towards us through the fog, a fearful din of yelling, shrieks of pain, then the noise of bayonets at work, and I could feel that the right side of the square was giving ground and being pressed back, and could hear the strange, choking, grunting noise men make when they are fighting hand to hand, and being overcome by numbers. ”

“ You'll be all right. Umph! I wrote to the missus to tell her you'd shot that chap who tried to cut me down; wrote to your mother too, to tell her you were going on well—told her about it as well. Umph!"
"Did you really, sir?" I gasped. "Thank you very much indeed, sir!"
"Umph! Do you know where we are going? Yokohama!—to-morrow; got orders to-night; off you go."
I rushed off to tell everybody, and was awfully happy again—everyone was; but what made me so happy was to know that Captain Lester himself had written about me saving his life, and that everyone at Upton Overy would know about it. ”

“ I couldn't see his face—it was so dark—but his voice sounded awful.
I was trembling all over, and scrambled in and called out for Sally. I forgot to call her Miss Hobbs.
She was still in that small room, and I heard her crawling across the floor. I heard the Scotchman and Martin firing out of the window too.
"What is it?" she asked in a scared voice. "Are we safe? Has Captain Evans come?"
"Come down with me. Mr. Hoffman's dying, and wants to see you." ”

“ We were a goodish bit behind time getting ashore, as the very dickens of a fog came up from the south and wrapped us in its "blissful mantle of white", as the young padré would have said if he'd been there. It was beastly annoying, and took all the gloss out of my moustache; but old Lawrence got us round to the back of the island somehow or other, chiefly by the sound of the Ringdove's guns, I think. ”

“ We all involuntarily stepped back in disgust, and the old gentleman opened his eyes in amazement when he saw that we were not pleased, and explained that it was the Boss Pirate himself, the chap who'd done everything he ought not to have done, and that now they had killed him, and that we had seen that he was really dead, and had got Hobbs and the girl, "it all makee end—all belong plenty too much bobberie—no can do—vely good—vely good", and he rubbed his hands together, and bowed and beamed at us again from behind his great horn-rimmed spectacles. ”

“ There was a crash and a whistling sound, and out through the poop bounded a round shot, struck against a big chock of wood at the foot of the mainmast, and bounced overboard. It only missed one of the men at the tiller by a hair's breadth, and he let out a squeal, he was so surprised, and then got red and tried to pretend that it wasn't him. "They're only smooth bores," Scroggs shouted. "Who's squealing like a furry rabbit?" and Fergusson fired again—she wasn't four hundred yards away—and missed her. ”

“ I had thrown out half a dozen marines as sentries—only ten yards in front of our bank—and one or other of them kept on letting off their rifles and scooting back. I had to lead them out again, firmly but gently. It's bad enough on an ordinary dark night to have to do sentry business, but in this fog, when you couldn't see anyone till he touched you, it was only the steadiest old soldier who could "stick" it. ”

“ I sent the Maxim downhill with a run, and Withers and his half company with it, to get behind a bit of a bank two hundred yards in the rear, and held on with my marines, dropping a few Chinese who were brave enough to stand up and show themselves; but most of the skunks were simply wriggling along from one bush or grave mound to another, and I'm jiggered if you can hit a man who's crawling and dodging—that is, when you are excited, and your heart is trying to thump its way out of your chest, and you are expecting the order to retire and have one eye on the rear. ”

“ All this time the noise outside was awful—rifles firing, crowds of people yelling—and stones began to patter against the shutters. The old Scotchman couldn't wait any longer, wrapped the little man in a long Chinese coat, lifted him off his feet, told Miller to bring Sally along, and ran out of the house. "So long as the boss's people keep firing, it's all right," he told me; and then I saw Miller lift Sally in his arms, in spite of her struggles, and we all followed, stones flying past our heads and rebounding from the walls. ”

“ Just imagine the temptation of seeing some lumbering great junk becalmed off your village, or stuck fast in the mud, if everyone was hungry and desperate, and imagine what an easy thing it was to man all your boats, surround her, and capture her. The chances were that she was full up with foodstuffs, beans, or rice or fish, and there was little to fear from the authorities, far away in Tinghai. They would never hear of it either, if you knocked the crew on the head. ”