Part 15

I can never say how I felt then, or how I managed to make myself understood by the Commander--even thinking of it makes me still shiver now, and, scores of times a year, I see that cap in my dreams lying there with its gilt badge just showing bright--but the Commander, with a cheery smile, pressed me down as I tried to rise, wriggled himself over the edge, and commenced climbing down, branches crackling and swaying, and stones sliding down ahead of him.

I kept my eyes glued on that cap, and waited with the greatest anguish to see his arm pushed out from the tall grass at the side of the road. I expected that he would wriggle himself through that and reach across with his arm, but though no arm appeared the cap disappeared, and in a minute I heard him coming up again.

"How did you do it?" I asked him thankfully, as he sank down beside me.

"With a long briar, my son--a prickly creeper which came in very handy."

Even as he spoke a long string of natives (Koreans, the Commander told me) laden with firewood passed in single file along the path. Fancy what would have happened if they had been but five minutes sooner!

They had hardly disappeared from sight as they followed the path, when suddenly a most tremendous banging of guns commenced from the direction of the entrance to the harbour, and, craning our necks round a corner of rook, we could see clouds of powder smoke floating up.

"'No. 3' come in to look for us," muttered the Commander. "I hope Parker will clear out of it before he gets damaged."

We listened, and tried to hear whether any shots were coming from seaward, but could hear none. The firing from the shore slackened, burst out again with fury, died away, and all became quiet once more.

"Parker's got out of range safely," chuckled the Commander.

* * * * *

After that I must have gone to sleep, and I woke up in broad daylight to find myself very hungry and very cold. Jones was lying coiled up in the grass and sound asleep, the Commander was peering through the bushes with his field-glasses and making little sketches in his note-book in front of him. He heard me stir, smiled cheerfully as he broke off a stalk of grass and began chewing it, and handed me his glasses.

"Start away from your right and tell me what you see."

Sliding into a better position, I had a splendid view of the whole harbour. On the extreme right I could see the low ground from which the black-bearded man had shaken his fist at us yesterday, and the narrow channel of water marking the outlet. Sweeping the glasses towards the left, I made out some torpedo-boats moored close together in a little bay.

"How many can you count?" the Commander asked me.

I counted seven. Then came three old-fashioned craft, ship-rigged with their to'-gallants and top-masts struck, whilst anchored all round them was a crowd of junks without a sign of life among them. They all seemed deserted.

"Those are the corvettes missing from the Yangtze Squadron," the Commander explained, excitedly for him, and his enthusiasm made one feel quite cheerful and frightfully excited too.

Still farther along to the left were twelve merchant steamers of all sizes and in no regular order--some mere hulks with no masts or boats, one without a funnel. Others, some four or five, had swarms of people on board, and from the clattering and hammering that came from them they seemed to be under repair. I told the Commander what I thought.

"Yes," he said, "they are altering them so that they can sell them without their old owners being able to recognize them."

Inshore I could see quite a busy little town, with large sheds and wooden warehouses, and hundreds of primitive bamboo-matting huts,--the pirate town, I knew, and you can guess that I forgot all about being hungry.

A rough pier jutted out from it, with a big steamer tied up to the end of it, and even as I looked they were lowering a mast into her with the aid of some tall sheer-legs.

Higher up behind the town were some bungalows--one of them was probably Hopkins's house, I thought--and the whole side of the hill was green with cultivation, the steep slopes terraced out in squares like a chess-board. Above these the hill was too steep for even Chinese to cultivate, and finished off in a flat peak much higher than any other point in the island. We all had noticed this hill from the sea.

Still farther towards the left, and under rather high land, were four cruisers moored head and stern. One I thought was very like the cruiser that had driven off "No. 2" and "No. 3" when we sank the destroyer outside the island.

"That is the _Hong Lu_," the Commander told me when I asked him.

"What guns can you make out?"

It was difficult to see accurately, for she was lying bows on towards us, but she seemed to have a gun about the size of a 6-inch on her fo'c'stle, and three on each side in small sponsons.

"Those other three are the _Yao Yuen_, _Mao Yuen_, and the _Tu Ping_," said the Commander, "and they seem to have all their guns aboard. But what do you make of the funny-looking craft moored right inshore?"

"Why, she's an ironclad, sir," I whispered, "with two turrets!"

"Yes; but has she any guns?"

I looked very carefully but could not see any. From a port in one turret something projected, but only a little way, and it looked ragged at the end.

"No, I don't think so, sir."

"That ship is the old _Ting Yuen_, Glover. They must have raised her from the bottom of Wei-hai-wei harbour, though why on earth they brought her down here if she had no guns fairly beats me."

Close to her were two old friends--the remaining two of the three Patagonians which had caused us so much bother all the way out from Malta, and near them three more torpedo-boats. Huge stacks of coal lined the shore behind them, several more warehouses, and another little pier.

How I did wish that Mellins and Toddles had been with me to see all this! and I forgot altogether that we were in such a helpless plight.

Steam-boats were darting about from one ship to another, and backwards and forwards between the ships and the shore.

Over the little town was a thin cloud of blue smoke, and from what must have been forges or workshops, darker columns of smoke curled upwards into the still air, with here and there a white jet of steam.

They seemed tremendously busy, and the little town fairly hummed with life.

"Carry on to your left and tell me what you see?" the Commander ordered.

First of all the high land, under which the cruisers lay moored, sloped gradually towards the channel through which we had drifted, and then ended abruptly in two terraces, one overlooking the other. A zigzag path cut in the face of the cliff opposite us led up to these terraces, starting from a little landing-place at the water's edge. A steam-boat was lying alongside, having evidently towed a boat-load of stores there, and a long line of coolies were trudging up in pairs with what looked like ammunition boxes suspended between them from bamboo poles across their shoulders. Others were trooping down empty-handed.

Following the zigzag path I made out a gun shield covered with a tarpaulin. That was on the lower platform, and sticking out from the rocks I could see the muzzle of a quick-firer on the upper platform.

"That's one of the forts, sir," I said excitedly.

Below the guns the rocks ran on for thirty or forty yards, and then were hidden behind some higher rocks on our side of the entrance channel. These shut out all view of the sea.

"Now come where I am and look round the corner to the left," said the Commander, rolling out of the way and chuckling to himself with amusement at my excitement. I did as I was told, and, pushing aside some branches, peered down.

The path below us--the path on which my cap had fallen--ran along the foot of the cliffs, along the water's edge, till it came to a little landing-place made of strong balks of timber. Reckoning in cricket pitches--a dodge the Commander had taught me--I thought that it was almost sixty yards away from where our dinghy was sunk.

The landing-place, like the one opposite it, had a small derrick at one corner, with tackle and blocks rigged for lifting weights out of a boat. Broad irregular steps cut in the rock led up from it to a well-cut path which, running sharply upwards, turned round a corner and was lost to sight.

At this corner a little platform, with a parapet all round it, had been levelled, and on it was a small shelter covered with matting.

In front of the shelter was an old oil-drum with its sides pierced with holes, and a little smoke was even now rising gently from it. This was the fire we had seen as we had drifted in.

Against the parapet two or three rifles were leaning.

Down below, with his legs dangling over the landing-place, a Chinaman, in a sort of uniform, was fishing and keeping up a running conversation with the sailors in the steam-boat alongside the opposite jetty.

Tied up to this landing-place were several small boats.

I told the Commander all I had seen, and then he ordered me to make sketches, showed me how to make them fairly accurately, and lent me his pencil.

I had a pocket-book of my own, and worked hard at it for two hours or more, and I think that I was really too frightened of the Commander to worry about our actual danger, for he was furiously angry at my first few attempts.

"I've never done anything like this before, sir."

"What the dickens were you doing in the _Britannia_?" he muttered. "I'll see that you get plenty of practice when we get back to the _Laird_."

"But please, sir, how are we going to get back?" I ventured to ask him presently. He would not answer me--only chuckled.

Every now and again the man who was fishing would be joined by some comrades, who were apparently on duty as sentries, for presently another steam-launch came swiftly from the town and ran alongside the landing-stage. The fisherman dropped his line and stood to attention; his chums ran up the steps, seized their rifles, and presented arms, whilst two Europeans stepped ashore.

One was the man with the black beard, the second was none other than Hopkins, and you can imagine how excited I was, for I could have hit them with a stone, they were so near, and I could hear Hopkins laughing merrily as he spun some yarn.

They climbed the steps, passed the sentries, and disappeared round the corner.

In about half an hour they came back and crossed to the other jetty. Here they were met by a third European, and all three walked up towards the fort, the coolies making way for them.

They did not stay long there. Hopkins and the black-bearded man came slowly down the zigzag path, jumped into the steam-boat, shoved off, and steamed towards the _Hong Lu_.

We followed them intently, and I noticed that they both kept looking up towards the top of the hill, behind the town, which I have told you was the highest point on the island. They seemed extremely interested in something there, and even stopped the boat and gazed steadily up at it through field-glasses.

They were evidently satisfied, went on again, and we saw them run alongside the _Hong Lu_ and climb up her accommodation-ladder.

The Commander had watched them carefully through his glasses, and now I saw him earnestly searching the top of that hill.

"That explains it all," he muttered to himself, and passed them across to me. "Look under those trees."

I could see nothing at first except a great broad track running up the side as if some heavy weights had been roughly hauled up it, but looking more closely under the trees I saw crowds of Chinese working like ants, then I made out the bend of a derrick, like a single boat's davit, showing up against the sky-line.

With this to guide me, and looking very carefully, I made out a great tarpaulin or canvas, covering something. It was a huge gun.

"Now I know why they fished up the old _Ting Yuen_," said the Commander, "and why she has no guns. They've managed to mount one of her 12-inch guns on top of that hill, and there is another on the beach close alongside her waiting to go up too, if I am not mistaken.

"My aunt," he chuckled, "how proud our sappers and gunners would be with a job like that!"

He seemed perfectly cheerful, and chuckled merrily to himself, though, for my part, I only thought that that big gun up there made it all the more impossible to capture the island, and that lying, as we were, right in the middle of the pirate harbour on a little ledge of rock not a hundred yards away from the sentries, with no chance, as far as I could see, of escaping, was not particularly funny.

I was simply frightfully hungry and fearfully thirsty. I had sucked grass and licked wet leaves till I was nearly sick. My legs and body were so stiff that it pained me even to roll over, ever so gently, and the sun was not warm enough to dry me properly. Jones was still sound asleep, and the Commander began making more sketches of the top of the hill, peering hard through his glasses, then adding a little to the drawing, and correcting the measurements by holding the pencil up against his eyes and moving his thumb along it. He was strangely elated.

A steam hooter sounded in the town, the clatter and hammering died away, the coolies working in the ships were taken ashore, the sentries cooked their dinner in the hot brazier, and everything became still and quiet except the pain inside me.

I felt hungry and miserable and longed for the _Laird's_ gun-room fire, and knew they were just beginning lunch aboard, and probably having a good rough-and-tumble fight.

"Pull your belt in, youngster, and buck up," said the Commander cheerily.

"Please, sir, I hav'n't got a belt."

"Well, get a big stone and lie on it."

That did relieve the pain a little.

"We've got eight or nine hours of it, youngster. Move your legs about every now and again to keep them from getting cramp."

Presently he asked me what plans I had made, and really I got quite excited in working out different schemes, and he was so jolly about it and never snubbed me that I forgot to be miserable for quite a long time.

Every now and again we stopped even whispering, whilst some Koreans straggled along the path beneath us, going to or coming from the fort.

At first we were in a horrible funk lest they should see the broken-down bushes and trampled grass, or even the sunken dinghy; but they were much too self-absorbed to notice anything, and gradually we left off fearing that they would discover us.

It seemed pretty evident that none of the Chinese lived anywhere near us, for not one passed during the whole day.

Then we talked of England, and somehow or other I mentioned Fareham.

"That is where your cousin lives, is it not?" he asked.

"Milly? Why, do you know old Milly?" I said.

"Well, just slightly." (I had a faint suspicion that he looked a little red in the face.) "I met her at a dance in Southsea. Don't go often to that kind of thing--make an awful mess of dancing, Glover, so generally stay away--but I had to go to this one, and met your cousin. Had one or two dances with her."

"Isn't she a perfect ripper?"

"She was extremely forbearing with me," he smiled, "and when I trod on her toes did not seem to mind a little bit."

"I should not be here if it had not been for her," I told the Commander.

"I rather think she got her father the Admiral to put in a good word for me too," he replied.

"Do you really?" I said, and remembered that Mr. Pattison had told me the same.

"She asked me to keep an eye on you and give you a leg up whenever I could. That is why I got you off the sick-list yesterday."

"What did Dr. Fox say when you asked him, sir?"

"Curse the boy! take him away and drown him for all I care."

"What a brute he is!" I said, rather forgetting myself, and wanting to bite my tongue off directly I had said it.

"He's the most kind-hearted man on board the _Laird_, Glover, and don't you forget it," the Commander answered severely.

I felt snubbed, and knew that I deserved it.

* * * * *

The steam hooter sounded again, but the coolies were not taken back to the ships; they seemed to be all collected round one of the sheds, and were making a great clamour. Something unusual seemed to be going on, but we could not make out what.

Half an hour later the Commander passed me the glasses and pointed to the side of the high hill. Looking through them I saw a long file of coolies slowly tramping along a zigzag path, looking like a great snake, and winding up the hill towards the gun. They were in groups of eight, and each group of eight had some very heavy weight between them, going very slowly and frequently stopping.

"They are taking up shell," the Commander said.

I watched that long procession toiling up the hill for a long time, and watching it made me sleepy, and I dropped off to sleep. It was nearly dark when I woke, and I heard Jones and the Commander talking softly.

Jones was saying: "The tide don't ebb till nigh three bells, sir, and it won't be running strong till eight or nine o'clock."

"I've been watching the morning ebb, and it ran very strongly past the end of the landing-stage," replied the Commander, "so that if we creep down in the dark, get hold of one of those boats and cast off, we shall be whisked out in no time. We may have to knock a sentry or two on the head, though," he chuckled. "You'll have to do that part of the show, Jones."

"Right you are, sir. I'm a bit cramped now, but I'll be all right soon."

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*The Escape from the Island*

We Scramble Down--We Secure the Sentries--We Capture the Steam-boat--We Run the Gauntlet

_Midshipman Glover's Narrative continued_

At six o'clock (we could hear the cruisers striking their bells, so knew what time it was), and just as it was getting dusk, a little steam-boat came across from the opposite fort, the European we had seen in the morning landed at the jetty below us, and went up towards the fort, leaving the boat with a coxswain, bowman, and a stoker.

In a few minutes he returned and went back to his own side.

At seven o'clock, or a few minutes afterwards, he came again. It was quite dark, but we heard the bowman make the boat fast by hooking: the bow rope into a ring on the landing-stage. The bowman then lighted a lantern and showed the way up the cliffs to the European, the two sentries who had been crouching in front of their now fiercely blazing fire following him round the corner.

In about ten minutes they returned.

Another hour dragged past--my goodness, how it did drag!--the lights went out in the little town, and just as the _Hong Lu's_ bell struck the hour the steam-boat came puffing across again.

The same routine was carried out, and for ten minutes the little steam-boat lay alongside the landing-stage with no one aboard her except the coxswain and the stoker. Evidently this European had to visit the fort every hour, and we noticed as he passed across the glare of the fire that he appeared to be walking unsteadily.

"We must stretch our legs," the Commander whispered. "I can hardly move mine;" and he rose to his feet and began hopping up and down. Jones and I did it after him, one at a time, and though at first our legs were horribly cramped and painful, the blood at last began to flow through them, and we were able to move freely.

"My old rheumatism, sir--the same what I had up the Straits--won't be no better for this, sir, I'm afraid," said Jones.

Then the Commander told us to be prepared to climb down to the path directly the guard-boat came alongside again and the European and the sentries had gone away.

There was no doubt at all that he was visiting the fort every hour, for as two bells (nine o'clock) rang out away over the harbour, we heard the crew of the steam-boat chattering as they took her alongside the opposite landing-stage.

Then a lantern came down the cliff path swinging jerkily, we heard several rough oaths, a command in Chinese, and the steam-boat shot across into the light of the camp-fire to our jetty.

"Stand by," whispered the Commander as coolly as possible, though my heart was beating tremendously fast; "I will go first, and, when I'm at the bottom, you, Glover, will follow, and Jones will bring up the rear."

We heard the hook-rope catch the ring, the European landed, lurching unsteadily, and disappeared up the path with the bowman and the two sentries.

Instantly the Commander slid over the edge of our ledge and went wriggling down. He made hardly any noise, and gave a low whistle when he had reached the bottom.

With my heart in my mouth I followed, grasping every branch and bit of rock, and lowering myself down. Everything I touched seemed to make an awful noise.

When I was half-way down my foot slipped, I grabbed at a branch, missed it, and went falling headlong, smashing through bushes, dislodging stones, and falling with a crash into a bush at the bottom.

The Commander was at my side in a moment.

"Not hurt, Glover? No. That's all right. Keep absolutely still; the men in the boat heard you, but they are not moving."

We waited a minute; the two men began talking to one another (we could just see their faces in the glow of the sentry's fire above them), and then Jones commenced to climb down, making wonderfully little noise for such a big man as he was. Some stones came rattling down, however, and the men became uneasy again, looking over their shoulders towards us, but not leaving the boat, and, of course, not being able to see us.

As Jones joined us the lantern reappeared, and the European came stumbling down the steps.

The coxswain began excitedly talking to him, pointing in our direction ("Get hold of a big stone, each of you, and hide in the long grass," the Commander whispered), but the European, evidently rather drunk, only cursed him, got into the boat, and still cursing made them shove off.

We breathed freely again and then waited.

"We have to settle those two sentries--Jones and I will do that. You, Glover, cast off one of the boats and get her alongside."

The steam-boat had shot across to the other side, the drunken man had gone staggering up the path, and then we heard the engines working again and heard the guard-boat going up harbour, the thud of her engines getting fainter and fainter in the night.

"Now wriggle along through the grass till I tell you to stop."

Even as the Commander gave this order he gave a warning hiss, and we sank down in the grass, for the two sentries, more concerned about the noises the coxswain had described than the officer was, or perhaps anxious for something to do to pass the time, lighted a lantern, and, coming down the steps, began walking along the path towards us.

"The Lord hath delivered them into our hands," the Commander muttered piously. "Jones, you seize the one with the lantern--by the throat, mind you--I'll seize the other. You put out the light, Glover, and stand by to help. Not a word and no noise."

Chattering to themselves they came along swinging the lantern unconcernedly. Perhaps they had expected to find that a goat had fallen down and broken his neck, and hoped to make a good supper of its strong meat. At any rate, they were not the least on their guard, and were quite unarmed.

I was much too excited to feel frightened.

They were examining the face of the cliff, holding the lantern up to find the cause of the noises, and as we were lying in the grass on the other side of the path they never even saw us.

As they passed, Jones and the Commander jumped up and sprang at them. One gave a funny hoot like an owl--it was the Commander's man, I think. The man Jones tackled never made a sound except a gurgle, and both went down like stones. I seized the lantern as it fell and blew it out, whilst they dragged the two Chinamen into the long grass.