"He thinks we shall never catch them, sir," stammered my messmate, who could see punishment writ large in the lieutenant's face.

"Confound the Chinaman, sir!" roared the lieutenant. "So do I; so does Captain Thwaites."

He spoke so loudly that this gentleman heard him from where he was slowly marching up and down, talking to the marine officer, and he turned and came towards us.

"In trouble, young gentlemen?" he said quietly. "Pray what does Captain Thwaites?" he added, turning to the chief officer.

"I beg your pardon, sir. I was a little exasperated. These young gentlemen, upon my reproving them for idling, have hatched up a c.o.c.k-and-bull story--at least Mr Barkins has."

"I beg pardon, sir; it was not a--not a--not a--"

"c.o.c.k-and-bull story, Mr Herrick," said the captain, smiling at my confusion, for I had rushed into the gap. "Then pray what was it?"

I told him all that Ching had said, and the captain nodded his head again and again as I went on.

"Yes," he said at last, "I'm afraid he is right, Reardon. It is worth thinking about. What do you say to my sending you and Mr Brooke in a couple of junks?"

They walked off together, and we heard no more.

"Oh, how I should like to punch old Dishy's head!" said Barkins between his teeth.

"Don't take any notice," said Smith; "it's only because he can't get a chance to sink a pirate. I don't believe there's one anywhere about the blessed coast."

"Sail ho!" cried the man at the mast-head, and all was excitement on the instant, for after all the strange sail might prove to be a pirate.

"Away on the weather bow, sir, under the land!" cried the man in answer to hails from the deck; and then, before gla.s.ses could be adjusted and brought to bear, he shouted--

"She's ash.o.r.e, sir--a barque--fore--topmast gone, and--she's afire."

The _Teaser's_ course was altered directly, and, helped by a favouring breeze, we ran down rapidly towards the wreck, which proved to be sending up a thin column of smoke, and soon after this was visible from the deck.

CHAPTER SIX.

MY FIRST HORROR.

I was in a great state of excitement, and stood watching the vessel through my spygla.s.s, longing for the distance to be got over and what promised to be a mystery examined. For a wreck was possible and a fire at sea equally so, but a ship ash.o.r.e and burning seemed to be such an anomaly that the officers all looked as if they felt that we were on the high road to something exciting at last.

In fact, we had been so long on the station for the purpose of checking piracy, but doing nothing save overhaul inoffensive junks, that we were all heartily sick of our task. For it was not, as Smith said, as if we were always in some port where we could study the manners and customs of the Chinese, but for ever knocking about wild-goose chasing and never getting a goose.

"Plenty on board," cried Barkins. "I say, Gnat, isn't he a humbug? Ha, ha! Study the manners and customs! Stuffing himself with Chinese sweets and hankering after puppy-pie, like the bargees on the Thames."

"Oh, does he?" cried Smith. "Who ate the frica.s.see of rats?"

"Oh, bother all that!" I said. "Here, Blacksmith, lend me your gla.s.s a minute; it's stronger than mine."

"Ho, ho!" laughed Barkins. "His! The wapping whacker! Why, it's a miserable slopshop second-hand thing. You should have had mine. That was something like, before you spoiled it."

"Here you are," said Smith, lending me his gla.s.s. "It's worth a dozen of his old blunderbuss."

I took the gla.s.s and had a good long inspection of the large barque, which lay heeled over on the outlying reef of one of the many islands, and could distinctly see the fine curl of smoke rising up from the deck somewhere about the forecastle.

"Make out any one on board, Mr Herrick?" said a sharp voice behind me, and I started round, to find that my companions had gone forward, and the first lieutenant was behind me with his spygla.s.s under his arm and his face very eager and stern.

"No, sir; not a soul."

"Nor signals?"

"None."

"No more can I," my lad. "Your eyes are younger and sharper than mine.

Look again. Do the bulwarks seem shattered?"

I took a long look.

"No, sir," I said. "Everything seems quite right except the fore-topmast, which has snapped off, and is hanging in a tangle down to the deck."

"But the fire?"

"That only looks, sir, as if they'd got a stove in the forecastle, and had just lit the fire with plenty of smoky coal."

"Hah! That's all I can make out. We've come to something at last, Mr Herrick."

"Think so, sir?" I said respectfully.

"Sure of it, my lad;" and he walked off to join the captain, while just then Ching came up softly and pointed forward.

"Big ship," he said. "Pilate; all afire."

"Think so?"

Ching nodded.

"Hallo, Gnat, what does the first luff say?" asked Barkins, who joined us then.

"Thinks it's a vessel cast ash.o.r.e by the pirates."

"Maybe. I should say it's one got on the reef from bad seamanship."

"And want of a Tanner on board to set them right," said Smith.

"Skipper's coming," whispered Barkins; and we separated.

For the next hour all was eager watchfulness on board, as we approached very slowly, shortening sail, and with two men in the chains heaving the lead on account of the hidden reefs and shoals off some of the islands.

But, as we approached, nothing more could be made out till the man aloft hailed the deck, and announced that he could read the name on the stern, _Dunstaffnage, Glasgow_. Another hour pa.s.sed, during which the island, a couple of miles beyond, was swept by gla.s.s after gla.s.s, and tree and hill examined, but there was no sign of signal on tree or hill. All was bare, chilly, and repellent there, and we felt that the crew of the vessel could not have taken refuge ash.o.r.e.

At last the crew of a boat was piped away, and, as I was gazing longingly at the men getting in under the command of Mr Brooke, a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, our junior lieutenant, Mr Reardon said, as he caught my eye--