"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 sh.o.r.e, 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 c.o.xswain; "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 ash.o.r.e?"

"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 ash.o.r.e. 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 c.o.xswain, 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 ash.o.r.e 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, c.o.xswain," 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 b.u.t.ts 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 b.u.t.ts 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 cutla.s.s 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 b.u.t.ts of their rifles, the boat-hook was wielded fiercely, and half-a-dozen of our a.s.sailants 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--