He was gone in a moment, and within the s.p.a.ce of half a minute had awakened the Professor and d.i.c.k. In a few words he related what was happening.

'Stand by the door and admit Alphonse,' he said. 'I am going for the men we engaged at Hong-Kong; they are to be trusted.'

He took his magazine pistol from the rack in which all the weapons were housed, and slid out on to the deck again. Then, bending low, he ran towards the hatchway which led to the quarters occupied by the men attached to the expedition. He was just disappearing down it when his eyes fell upon some two dozen bent and dusky figures creeping along the deck. A moment later one of them gave a sharp order, and at once, with shouts and cries, the whole party dashed toward the stern of the vessel.

The attack on the Professor's party was about to begin. David's retreat was entirely cut off by the enemy.

CHAPTER VII

At Sea on a Chinese Junk

'Steady!' David commanded himself, feeling for the moment as if he were about to give way to panic. 'Go below and get the four men, then make a rush. You couldn't get back to the cabin alone.'

He stood on the narrow steps, with his head just above the level of the hatch and watched for a moment; for the sudden view he had obtained of the attackers, and their unexpected rush aft had taken him unawares. As he stared into the gloom he could see the figures which had pa.s.sed him at a rush moving about from side to side of the vessel, just outside the huge deck cabin that occupied the whole of the stern. He heard blows struck against the woodwork, and a loud, resounding bang, as the door was locked and bolted. Then the shouts died away. A man stood out prominently from his comrades, and gave a sharp order. A second later there was a blinding flash, a deafening roar rolled along the decks and over the sea, while the flame lit up the surroundings.

'Fired a blunderbuss or some other ancient weapon,' David told himself.

'Blew a hole clean through the door. I do hope that none of my friends were behind it. Ah! that is the answer.'

For one brief second he had obtained a clear view of the attackers. Some twenty-four in number, they crouched on the deck as the weapon was fired, so that the ruffian who pulled the trigger became all the more prominent. He was a tall, lanky Chinaman, dressed in loose cotton clothing, and with arms bared to the shoulder. David even caught a view of his swaying pigtail. Then darkness descended again, and blotted out the figure. A moment later startled voices came to his ear from below; at once he dropped to the bottom of the ladder.

'Gently, Ho Hung,' he whispered, calling to one of the four men who had joined the staff of the expedition, and who had been with the Professor on a previous occasion. Ho Hung, indeed, was well known to our hero, for it was he who made such valiant efforts every day to teach him the language. 'Gently, Ho Hung,' he called again, speaking in Chinese as well as he could. 'I am here, at the bottom of the ladder.'

Something touched his leg. Strong fingers closed about the ankle, and sent a thrill throughout David's frame. He clenched his teeth, and stooping, gripped the wrist of the man below, prepared to throw himself upon him.

'Speak,' he commanded, hoa.r.s.ely. 'Who are you?'

'Ho Hung, Excellency. I heard you call; there is trouble on the deck?'

'Listen,' said David, breathing deeply, a huge sigh of relief escaping him. 'We are attacked. My friends are in the cabin; we must reach them, you and I and the other three. Where are they?'

Not a sound had he heard below, save Ho Hung's voice; but at his question three more figures rose up before him as if they were ghosts, though in the dense darkness of the 'tween decks he could not perceive them. But the men spoke huskily, their tones strangely different from the high-pitched notes they were wont to employ.

'Lo Fing, Excellency, here, ready.'

'And Hu Ty, at your orders.'

'With John Jong, Excellency, prepared to obey.'

The latter individual impressed his presence upon our hero by stretching out a long, thin hand in the darkness, and laying it upon his shoulder.

But that was often this Chinaman's salutation in the case of David or d.i.c.k, though he would never have dared in the case of the Professor or in that of Alphonse. Still he was a merry, privileged rascal, and enjoyed the name of John, probably because of its similarity to his own of Jong, and also, perhaps, because he was the only one of the four who could understand and speak English.

'Allee lightee, Excellency David,' he said, using his queer pidgin-English. 'Allee four here. What then? Trouble above? Dat rascal captain up to some nicee little game?'

But David ignored the questions. Ho Hung was the leader of this little quartet, and by far the most reliable. He swung round upon the Chinaman, who still gripped his ankle, as if to a.s.sure him of his presence all the while, and spoke hastily, his knowledge of the language, small though it was, proving of the greatest service.

'You will stand by us then?' he asked.

'We swear it,' came solemnly from Ho Hung, while the other three gave guttural approval. 'And you are armed?'

From the neighbourhood of John Jong there came the sound made when a match is struck, and almost at once a flame illuminated the surroundings, showing the four Chinamen, their eyes strangely big and prominent in the flare, and David at the foot of the ladder. Jong held the match forward, and each man in turn showed the weapon he possessed.

'See, Excellency, a staff,' said Ho Hung, displaying a ma.s.sive staff, that would prove a formidable weapon.

'And knives here, and here, and here.' Jong pointed to the one he had in his own belt, while Lo Fing and Hu Ty held theirs forward, smiling grimly.

'Then wait while I see what is happening. We have to join the others, and I have arranged to make use of the port under the ladder leading to the top of the cabin. We shall have to make a rush--you understand that?

You follow what I mean?'

The match had burned down to Jong's finger tips by now, and he let the end drop on to the boards, stamping the ash out with his feet; but the light given even by such a small incandescent piece of wood in the darkness was sufficient to show up the figures for a few seconds. David watched the men and nodded. There was no doubt that they had understood his laboured rendering of their own language.

'Then wait,' he said curtly. 'I will see what is happening. One of the crew fired a gun at the cabin door. I heard a shot in return, and believe the man fell; since then there has not been a sound. Wait; I'll be back in a moment.'

He stole softly up the ladder, for he had only a pair of soft bedroom slippers on his feet, and they were as good for the purpose as even the cotton-soled shoe worn by the Chinese themselves. In a twinkling his head was on a level with the hatch, and then he cautiously raised it.

'Men creeping about as if they were in search of something,' he told himself, seeing moving figures. 'One lying on the deck just where that fellow stood to fire his shot. Killed, I expect, by our own party. What on earth are the rascals up to?'

He was puzzling his brains as to what could be pa.s.sing, for there seemed no object in the movement of the men on deck, while the attack on the cabin appeared to have been forgotten. Then a sharp exclamation reached his ears, and one of the attackers stood upright, lifting something from the deck. David could not be sure, but believed it was an axe, and again wondered what would be done with it.

'Break in the door, I suppose,' he told himself. 'That'll want doing; there are pistols there, my friend, as you will soon learn to your cost.

Ah! Another seems to have discovered a similar weapon.'

It was not at all remarkable that such a search should be needed for these two axes--and axes they undoubtedly were--for the methods of the commander of the native boat were anything but excellent. Untidiness was noticeable everywhere; odds and ends of things, bales and boxes and coils of rope and tackle of every description littering the deck. And amidst the various items were the axes.

'Talking the matter over amongst themselves,' thought David, seeing the dusky figures come together at one side of the deck. 'That shows they counted on winning their way into the cabin at the first rush. They made sure that they would pounce upon us unawares, and never imagined that we should be ready for them. Now they'll decide upon some plan for forcing their way in. This would be our chance for rushing along to join our comrades.'

The thought had hardly crossed his mind when those long, firm fingers closed again round his ankle, a sure signal that Ho Hung wished to communicate with him. Instantly David slid down into the depths of the vessel.

'Well?' he asked, somewhat curtly, for he was anxious not to lose sight of the enemy. 'They have been searching the decks for axes and have discovered two. I think they are about to rush at the door and attempt to beat it in. That will be the moment for us to run. You have all that, Hung? Can't make it a bit clearer.'

A guttural response rea.s.sured him. 'We have understood. His Excellency speaks plainly, though he makes many mistakes. Hung wished only to tell of something which has been forgotten. There is no need to go out on deck and enter by the port, for there is a path to the cabin by this way. Does his Excellency forget that meals are brought to his friends through a hatchway leading up through the floor of the cabin?'

The position of that hatch flashed across David's brain instantly, and he could have struck himself for having forgotten it so readily. Of course, it was the only way by which to rejoin the party in the cabin, and offered a perfectly safe road.

'We will make along it at once, Hung,' he said. 'Let Jong run and warn our friends immediately. I will watch at the top of the ladder, while you and the other two search about for something with which to block the foot of the ladder leading up to that hatch. Quick with it! They may have remembered it too.'

Feeling sure that his orders would be carried out promptly, he swarmed up to the level of the deck again, and once more cautiously protruded his head. At the same moment a heavy thud reached his ears; there came the sound of splintering wood, then the sharp, distinctive snap of a magazine pistol. As on a former occasion, though to a lesser degree this time, the flash of the weapon gave our hero an instant's view of his surroundings. Thirty feet away was the wall of the cabin, with the dark lines of the doorposts in the centre, while the deck on either hand was occupied by crouching figures. One Chinaman alone was prominent, and he stood before the door, frantically struggling to drag the blade of the axe he had been wielding out of the woodwork. He staggered backwards with the weapon, as the darkness fell like a screen about him. Then the sound of splintering wood was repeated, a pistol snapped, and after it another, illuminating the scene for the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds. David saw the Chinaman reel across the deck, and heard the axe fall heavily upon the boards, then his eye fell upon other figures. Half a dozen men were creeping towards the hatchway from which he was watching, and the leader of the band was within a few inches.

'One of the foreign devils,' he heard a man call. 'Hold him! Seize him!

He has stolen out of the cabin.'

'I have him. Follow. Push your knives into his carca.s.s.'

The leader so close to our hero recovered from his astonishment far sooner than did David, and hardly had his companion shouted when the man threw himself forward as if he were diving, and landing full upon the lad, who was standing on the steep steps that lead to the 'tween decks, gripped him round the neck in an embrace that was stifling. The result must have been as much of a surprise to him as it was to our hero; for the latter's feet slipped, his soft, felt soles failing to grip the rungs of the ladder, and at once both were precipitated to the bottom.

'Yield, foreign devil,' the man hissed in his ear. 'Yield, or I will thrust my knife through you.'