“A very pirate or slaver,” replied Adair, “but she is only, I suspect, an honest opium-smuggler.”
“Honest, do you call her?” exclaimed the lieutenant. “If because a vile system is carried on openly it is to be considered honest, then slaving is honest, and piracy, and highway robbery, for that matter. See, however, her gallant skipper is not afraid of us. Look, with what a self-satisfied air he walks the deck with his gold lace cap, and glass under his arm. They are preparing to lower a boat, and he’ll come to pay his respects as one captain does to another.”
In a short time the master of the schooner made his appearance on the deck of the frigate. Captain Grant got up to receive him. He was an intelligent, dashing-looking young man.
“I am glad that I have fallen in with you, sir,” he began. “Last night, just before sunset, I heard some firing, and standing in the direction from which the sound came, I observed a brig of war apparently almost surrounded by junks not far from the land, to the southward of this—out there. I made sail, hoping to render her assistance; but so large a force of sailing and row junks sallied out from behind a point of land and made towards me, that, as I have lost half my crew with sickness and a former battle with a squadron of the villains, I was compelled to up stick and run for it. I shall be glad, however, to return with you, and assist in piloting you to the spot.”
“Thank you, captain—thank you,” answered Captain Grant, extending his hand. He wisely never denied nominal rank to masters of vessels, however employed. “I most gladly accept your offer.”
“Hudson is my name—my craft is the Flying Fish; and when you see her in a good breeze, you’ll acknowledge that she does fly along,” answered the master, looking with pride at his trim and beautiful craft.
She and the frigate instantly made sail to the southward. In a few hours the sound of an occasional shot saluted their ears and gave them hopes that the Blenny was still afloat and able to defend herself. As they got nearer, they could make her out from the mast-head, amid a wide circle of junks which were keeping up a distant fire at her. It at this critical juncture fell perfectly calm. Captain Hudson, who had come on board the frigate and gone aloft, now returned on deck.
“I know the trick of those fellows, sir. They hope to make her exhaust her ammunition and then to board her. They seem pretty well to have done that already. You must go to her relief in the boats, or the villains may have cut the throats of all on board before you can get up to them.”
This seemed too probable. All the frigate’s boats were now lowered, armed with guns in the bows, manned, and sent away under the command of Mr Cherry, without a moment’s delay.
“Poor Jack!” exclaimed Adair to young Harry Bevan. “It was only the other day that he and I were pulling along just as we are now doing. And now—who can say where he is? Still, do you know, Harry, I have an idea that he’ll turn up somehow or other. He always has done so, and I can’t help hoping that he and Murray may yet be found.”
“I hope and pray so, I’m sure I do,” said Harry, almost crying, “but I’m afraid there’s very little chance of it. Even if the Chinese picked them up, they would be sure to murder them.”
* * *
* * *
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Jack and Murray alongside a Chinese boat.—Instead of being brained are hauled on board.—An unexpected friend.—Jos and Hoddidoddi.—Jos a philosopher.—The midshipmen prisoners.—Are well fed, but have unpleasant ideas as to the reason of this.—Chinese habits and customs.—An American merchantman in sight.—The American captain fights bravely, but the pirates capture her.—A female shriek is heard, and Jack and Alick rush to the rescue.
Who would have ventured to believe that the fate of the brave, true-hearted Jack Rogers, and the gallant, high-minded Alick Murray, was to be cruelly murdered by a set of ill-conditioned, barbarous Chinese pirates? Yet such has been unhappily the lot of many of the finest fellows in the British navy and army. When Jack, supporting Murray with one arm, looked up and saw half a dozen hideous Chinese faces, with flat noses, grinning mouths, and queer twisted eyes lighted up by the flames of the burning fire-ships, gazing maliciously down on him, he gave up all for lost. Had Murray not been still insensible, he would have swum away, defying the sharks till he could have got hold of something to support him, or he would have attempted to climb into the boat and had a desperate battle for his life. As it was, without sacrificing Murray, he could do neither.
A savage was standing up, lifting a large battle-axe, the bright steel of which glittered in the glare of the burning ships, and was on the point of letting it fall with a crushing blow on his head—and already Jack felt the horrible sensation of having his skull crushed in and cleft asunder—when another sprang forward and seized the wretch’s uplifted arm. He could only turn the blow aside, for the axe came down, and the blade dug deeply into the side of the boat. Jack seized it, for it formed a convenient handle on which to rest, and afforded him a support he much required.
He fully expected to have another hack made at him, and was considering how best he might avoid it, when the pirates seized him and Murray, and dragged them into the boat. Still he did not feel much more secure than he had been in the water, as he expected that, as they might treat a useless fish, they would throw him overboard again when they had glutted their revenge by knocking the life out of him.
“If poor Murray does not revive, he will be spared much of the unpleasantness,” he thought to himself. It is extraordinary how coolly he took matters. He was rather surprised himself at his own indifference to his approaching fate. The Chinese were all chattering and vociferating together over him and Murray, as their bodies lay along the thwarts, for he was so exhausted that he could scarcely move, when he heard a voice say, “Don’t fear, English officer. I take care you no hurt.”
“Very much obliged to you, whoever you are,” answered Jack. “But I say, friend, I wish that you could get me put into a more comfortable position, and lend a helping hand to my poor companion here, who will be suffocated, I fear, if something is not done to him.”
“All right, by and by,” answered the voice. “Let dese men hab dere palaver out; dey no talk of kill ’ou now.”
“That information is satisfactory, at all events,” thought Jack. “Well, I must have patience; that never hurt any one, and has saved many a life. Only I do wish these fellows would bring their palaver to an end, and let me find out who my friend is.”
The pirates at last brought their conference to an end. They probably came to the conclusion that, as a live donkey is of more value than a dead one, and as profit more than revenge was their object, it would probably better answer their purpose to keep the young officers alive, and endeavour to obtain a ransom for them, than to kill them, and in consequence be hunted down with even more pertinacity than before. As to being influenced by any feelings of humanity, such an idea never for a moment crossed their brains.
Jack and Murray were now carried to a platform in the after-part of the boat, when the former was allowed to sit up with his friend’s head in his lap, and to apply such means of restoring him to animation as he could devise. He turned him round on one side, so that the water might run out of his mouth, and was rubbing away as briskly as he could, when he heard the same person who had before addressed him say, “All right, I told you; I come and help you now.” On looking up, who should he see, but one of the crew of the frigate, the Malay who spoke English, who went by the name of Jos Grummet, and his friend Hoddidoddi, who, it now appeared, had deserted with him on the island. It was Jos who had saved his life from the man with the battle-axe, and Hoddidoddi who had advised the pirates not to kill them at all, but to keep them for the more satisfactory object of obtaining a ransom.
After a little time, by their united exertions, Murray recovered, and was able to sit up and understand what had occurred. Jack was now much happier as to the future.
“Well, thank you heartily, Jos, for what you have done for us,” said he. “And I can assure you, that if you go back to the frigate, you will not be flogged, or even have your grog stopped.”
“Tankee, sare,” answered Jos. “But ’spose me no go back, no hab fear of floggie at all.”
“Please yourself,” said Jack, “Remain a wandering Malay, or become a civilised British seaman, with Greenwich in prospect. However, you have done me a great service, and I wish to recompense you to the best of my power.”
“Really, Alick, I think that there ought to be a fund for pensioning those who assist in preserving midshipmen’s lives; we do run so many risks of losing them,” he observed to Murray, who fully agreed with him.
“I say, Jos,” he exclaimed, after a little silence, “do just hint to these polite gentlemen, that we shall make the amount of our ransom depend on the condition in which we are returned to our friends, and that if we are starved, they will not give much for us. I am getting very peckish; are you, Alick? I thought it was just as well to make those remarks in time; besides it is always wise for people in our circumstances to put a good face on matters; it shows the villains that we are not cast down or afraid of them.”
Jos told Hoddidoddi, who interpreted their request in his own fashion, and the reply was, that they should have some food when they got on board the junk. At that moment the sound of oars was heard, and an English boat hove in sight. Some of the pirates were for fighting, but Jos represented that the British sailors were such desperate fellows, that they would not hesitate to attack a big junk, and would take her, and make mincemeat of every one on board; and that such a boat as theirs would be treated with still more scant ceremony. So, much to the midshipmen’s disappointment, they wisely pulled away as hard as they could go, till they got under shelter of the fleet of junks.
The boat belonged, it appeared, to one of the smaller junks, on board which Jack and Alick were at once carried.
The piratical squadron now instantly made sail, and a favourable breeze having sprung up, they steered for the northward. Their notable scheme for destroying the English frigate having failed, the fleet separated, some taking shelter among the neighbouring islands, others standing out to sea in quest of prey, but the greater number returning to their accustomed haunts in the neighbourhood of Canton, localities most frequented by traders in the China seas.
The vessel on board which Jack and Alick found themselves formed one of the latter fleet. Their captors were, Jos explained to them, great diplomatists. They argued that if they gave them up at once, a small sum only would be offered for them; but if they kept them for some time, and made their friends suppose they were lost, they would be ready to pay any amount demanded for their ransom. They were not treated with much ceremony or civility, but Jack’s hint about their condition when reckoning for ransom, had one good effect; and somewhat for a similar reason that an ogre or a slave-dealer would sufficiently feed his captives, they were amply supplied with rice and other provisions. Sometimes the dishes had a very suspicious look.
“They don’t eat babies, do they?” said Jack, dipping his chop-stick into the tureen placed before them, and producing a limb of some creature which certainly had a very odd appearance.
“No, I fancy not,” answered Murray; “but we had better not ask questions.”
They agreed that it was in all probability only a monkey which had been seen on board, but was no longer visible; and as the captain and his officers partook of the same dish, they had no cause to complain. They soon learned to relish lizards and snakes well stewed with curry powder and rice; and they came to the conclusion that a dish of snails was not in any way to be despised. As they could take no exercise except a walk up and down the curious little narrow cabin in which they were confined, they both declared they were growing so fat that perhaps the pirates would, after all, demand a higher ransom than Captain Grant would be able or willing to pay.
“I am really afraid that we are caught in our own trap,” said Jack. “I thought that pig-tailed, pig-eyed skipper of ours, when he looked in on us just now, smiled very complacently at our sleek skins. We must get Jos to tell him that if we grow too fat we shall be worth very little. There is nothing like moderation in all things.”
“There is nothing like honesty and telling the truth,” said Murray.
“We should have starved if we had strictly stuck to it in this case,” answered Jack.
“No matter, we should probably have been much sooner liberated,” answered Alick. “Depend on it, whenever a person tells an untruth he sets a trap to catch his own feet.”
“You are always right, Alick,” said Jack, with honest warmth. “And suppose all this time they have been giving us stewed babies and young alligators to eat, how doubly punished we should be.”
The junk on board which the midshipmen were prisoners was a curious piece of marine architecture. She was flat-bottomed, flat-sided, flat-bowed, and flat-sterned. She was, of course, narrower at the bow than at the stern, where indeed she was very broad. The rudder was wide and fixed in a hollow in the stern, to which it was hung by ropes or hawsers, so that it could with perfect ease be lifted out of its place and slung alongside. There was no stem, but a huge green griffin or dragon, or monster of some sort, projected over the bows, on each side of which were two large eyes—Chinaman’s eyes in shape: and as Jos remarked about them, “Ship no eyes, how see way?”
The sides, though flat, extended gradually outward as they rose, so that on deck there was considerable beam. The deck was composed of loose planks easily removed. At the poop and forecastle were a succession of little sloping decks, gradually narrowing as they rose in height, and enclosed to form cabins. The bulwarks were high and surrounded with large, round shields of wood and leather, and brass knobs, and curious devices painted on them. The anchors were curious contrivances, made of some hard wood, very large and cumbrous, the flukes only being tipped with iron. Outside at the bows was a wonderfully awkward-looking winch for getting up the anchor; and as Jack observed, when he came to be made Lord High Admiral of the Chinese fleet, there were a good many things he saw that he should have to alter.
The sails were made of matting, with laths placed across them. When it was necessary to reef or lower the sails the seamen climbed up these laths, and, standing on the upper yards, pressed them down, no down hauls being necessary, bowlines, however, were used to stretch them out. Had Jack and Murray not been prisoners, with the possibility of the pirates changing their minds and cutting their throats, they would have been excessively amused at watching the proceedings of the crew, and rather enjoyed their cruise on board the pirate. On deck there was an erection like a diminutive caboose, but which was a temple or joss-house. The sailors were constantly making offerings before it, apparently as the caprice seized them, by burning gilt paper, or thin sticks, or incense.
