“Dat is just what I tort it would be,” said Jos, quite coolly, watching the effects of the catastrophe, as he assisted to shove the junk out from among the crowd of burning vessels. The pirate captain and crew, most of whom had got on board, thought that they were very much indebted to him and the white men for having been the means of saving their vessel. As they also had been the most busily at work, and had collected a good deal of booty, they did not at all take to heart the accident which had happened to their pirate companions. They shrugged their shoulders, and blinked their little pig-eyes and seemed to think that it was just as well as it was, seeing that they themselves had come off better than anybody else.
A few more junks having blown up, and others having burned to the water’s edge or sunk, those that had escaped sent their boats, not so much for the chance of saving any fellow-creatures who might be struggling for existence, as to pick up any articles of value which might be still floating. The fleet then made sail away from the spot, lest the explosion might be the means of bringing down an enemy upon them to interfere with their proceedings.
The midshipmen were now placed in a somewhat difficult position with regard to the ladies in their cabin. How to account for their being there was one puzzle, and how to save them from annoyance or insult was another. The pirates seemed inclined to treat the American captain and mate as well as they had done the midshipmen. They had seen them very active in saving the junk, but it was probably not gratitude so much as the hope of obtaining a ransom which made them civil. Jos having intimated that they were hungry, in a short time a mess of food was brought for the whole party to the upper raised deck in the after-part of the vessel. While discussing this meal, they also discussed the means likely to be most serviceable to the ladies. The American captain told them that his brig was the Wide Awake; that his name was William Willock, that of his mate, Joe Hudson; that they were bound to Sydney in Australia, where the two ladies, who were French, and mother and daughter, were proceeding.
“I know what!” cried Jack, as if a bright thought had struck him. “The pirates seem to treat men civilly enough; could we not manage to rig up the ladies in men’s clothes? There is a chest of Chinamen’s coats and trousers in our cabin, and the old lady would make a very tolerable mandarin.”
“I should think it would very speedily be discovered what they are,” answered Murray. “It will be better if we get Jos to talk over the old pirate skipper, and having excited his cupidity in suggesting a good ransom, produce our captives, and charge him to treat them well. What do you say, Captain Willock?”
“A very good plan, I guess,” was the answer; “there is nothing like making it the interest of a man to do what you want him. Just let the ladies show themselves. I suppose Chinamen have hearts like other people, and will have some compassion on them, when they see their distress.”
“But how are we to account for their being on board, and in our cabin?” asked Jack.
“Let your Malay friend, then, settle that; he’ll know what will be most likely to go down with the Chinamen,” answered Captain Willock.
“I think, rather, that we should boldly say that we brought them, and claim them as our share of the loot, as the Indians call it—the booty,” said Murray. “Now that all the miserable wretches from whom we rescued them have, in all probability, been destroyed, there will be no one, unless any of our own crew saw our proceedings, to witness against us. When the pirates find that they are to get a ransom for the ladies, they will be very much obliged to us for having saved them, and, depend on it, will treat them properly.”
Murray’s plan, which was certainly the wisest, as it was the most straightforward, was agreed to. They, however, said nothing till late in the evening, when the fleet of junks dropped their ponderous wooden anchors close to the shore in a beautiful little bay, surrounded by green hills covered to the water’s edge with trees.
“The pirates are fellows of some taste to choose this beautiful spot for their harbour,” observed Jack, looking round.
“Not they,” answered Captain Willock, with a laugh. “I guess now they choose it because it hides them pretty securely, and they can sweep out and pounce down on any unfortunate craft which they may catch unprepared for them in the neighbourhood. But here’s our skipper; Fi Tan you call him, don’t you? Well, he’s a mild, decent, quiet old gentleman; don’t look as if his trade was cutting throats. You’d better tell him about the ladies, or he will be finding it out himself.”
Jack and Alick agreed to this, and calling Jos, begged him to open the subject to the pirate captain, which he did with no little circumlocution, and very considerable departure from the real facts of the case, notwithstanding Jack’s charge to him to adhere to them. The Malay had two reasons for this. In the first place, he had got so completely into the way of telling falsehoods, that he could scarcely speak the truth had he tried; and in the second place, he knew that, speak the truth or not, he should not be believed. Old Fi Tan having heard Jos to an end, and watched the dumb-show of the midshipmen and Americans, desired to have the cabin door opened. The old lady, who had thrown herself into a bed, started up, and was going to shriek out, when Captain Willock’s voice reassured her. Her daughter, who had been watching while she slept, stood trembling by her side, but tried to look as composed as she could. Captain Willock and the midshipmen soon made them understand what had occurred, and begging them to be no longer alarmed, promised that they would do their best, either to effect their escape, or to obtain their ransom.
“Oh! but our friends are all in Australia; we have no one at Canton to care for us,” cried the young lady, wringing her hands.
“Never fear, miss,” said Jack. “I beg your pardon, but I don’t know your name; but I don’t doubt the merchants there will come down with all that is required; and if not, the midshipmen on the station would be delighted to pay your ransom, and take it out of the pirates afterwards, when we catch them.”
The young lady, who did not exactly understand who midshipmen were, or what taking it out of the pirates meant, nevertheless thought Jack a very polite young gentleman, and thanking him warmly, told him that her name was Cecile Dubois, and that her mother was Madame Dubois, but that she only spoke French, and as she was now too old to learn English, she hoped he would learn French to talk to her.
Jack, with a flourish of his turban—which head-covering he and Murray wore instead of their caps, which they had lost—assured her that he should have unbounded pleasure in so doing, if she would undertake to teach him. “But, Miss Cecile,” added Jack; “now I know your name, it is pleasant to call you by it; before we begin, wouldn’t you like a little food? You and your mamma must be peckish, I suspect, and she doesn’t look as if she was accustomed to starve.” This want being made known to Jos, he in a short time procured an inexplicable sort of mess not altogether unattractive, to which, at all events, the old lady seemed perfectly ready to do justice, though the younger one, with a taste which Jack admired, only ate some of the rice, and the less oleaginous morsels.
Altogether the midshipmen were pretty well satisfied with the turn affairs had taken; but poor Captain Willock had to mourn over the loss of his ship and cargo, as also, probably, most of his crew. Some he had seen taken prisoners, and dragged off on board the junks; whether their throats had been cut, or whether they were to be found among the pirate fleet, he could not tell. Others, he had too great reason to fear, had been blown up. “They were cowards some of them, to be sure, or they would have stuck by us, and we should have beaten off the pirates; but still I cannot bear to think of them all being cruelly murdered,” observed the captain to his mate.
“I guess you’re not far wrong, captain,” answered Joe Hudson. “If it hadn’t been for these British officers, we should have been where they are, pleasant or unpleasant.”
“We only did for you what I am sure you would have done for us,” answered Murray. “We liked to see the brave way you met the pirates, and we are very glad to have assisted any Americans, whom we look upon as cousins, the next thing to our own countrymen.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you,” said Captain Willock warmly, taking Alick’s hand. “If the Britishers and Yankees were always together, we might flog all the world, I guess, who might try to oppose us.” Thus harmony prevailed among the captives.
For the next two days the fleet lay at anchor, those junks which had suffered by the explosion of the brig being engaged in repairing damages.
Jack got on very rapidly with his French, for, having nothing else to do, he studied very hard, and Mademoiselle Cecile happened to have a copy of “Paul and Virginia” in her pocket when the vessel was attacked. It served as a capital lesson-book.
As Murray already knew French, he did not require Miss Cecile’s lessons, and so he was able to look philosophically on, and, like a wise monitor, he told Jack to take care what he was about, neither to take possession of the young lady’s heart nor to lose his own. Whether he would have taken this advice, which was sage and sound, it is impossible to say; but other stirring events happened which put a stop to the French lessons.
One evening the midshipmen observed the pirates in a great state of commotion. Those who were on shore came off and armed themselves after their fashion, by sticking pistols and daggers in their belts, and hanging swords over their necks, and then all hands set busily to work to get their ships into fighting order. Jos, who had been on shore, came off among the others, and informed them that another pirate fleet had hove in sight, and that it was expected that it would come into the bay to attack them for the sake of making them disgorge the booty they had collected.
“Pretty scoundrels,” said Jack; “there is not even honour among these thieves themselves.”
“No, sare,” answered Jos quietly. “Big man in dis country always cut little man’s troat, if little man got any ting worth having.”
“Pleasant,” remarked Jack; “I would rather be an English ploughman than a Chinese mandarin.”
While the midshipmen were talking to Jos, Captain Fi Tan came up, and intimated to the latter that he should expect his prisoners to take an active part in the battle, and to assist in defending the junk.
“A cool request,” remarked Jack; “however, as fight we must, probably to defend our own lives and those of the two ladies, we may as well make a virtue of necessity. You agree with me, Murray—and so do you, Captain Willock and Mr Hudson? Well then, Jos, tell Captain Fi Tan that we will fight for him, but that he must give us any recompense we may demand.”
Jos spoke to the pirate captain, who immediately said that he would agree to their terms.
“That’s to say, he’ll take the fighting out of us first, and then, if he finds it convenient, change his mind,” remarked Captain Willock. “I know the way of the Chinese. You cannot trust them.”
“Perhaps when we have taught them to trust us they may learn to be trustworthy themselves,” observed Murray; “besides, these fellows are professed pirates. What can you expect of them?”
“They are all alike, all alike; all rogues and vagabonds together,” answered the skipper.
After this somewhat sweeping condemnation of a whole people, their conversation was interrupted by the pirates bringing them a heap of pistols, daggers, knives, and swords, with which to cover their persons in Chinese fashion to be ready for battle. Darkness now came on, and in a short time lights were seen in a pretty dense line, reaching across the entrance of the harbour. The dark outlines of a fleet of junks soon after this appeared through the gloom, and forthwith gongs and cymbals began to clash, and shrieks and shouts ascended, and guns, and jingalls, and pistols went off, while fire-balls, and rockets, and stink-pots, and other Chinese devices for warfare, filled the air, and truly made “night hideous.”
* * *
* * *
Chapter Thirty.
Jack’s anxiety for his fair companions.—The fight continues, and the midshipmen begin to fire away in earnest—A junk blows up at a convenient moment—A boat with help appears, and all the party attempt to make their escape.—Chinese provisions.—Their hopes sink.—Pirate junks appear.—Again made prisoners, and separated from their lady companions.
Rogers and Murray, and their companions, watched with considerable anxiety the approach of the fresh horde of pirates. From the number of lights they showed, and the noise they made, it was very evident that their fleet was much more powerful than the one which had captured the brig.
“If we were on shore now, I should little care if the result of the fight was like that of the two Kilkenny cats Adair tells a story about, who fought so desperately that at the end of the battle only their tails were to be found,” said Jack; “they having, in a way none but Irish cats could have succeeded in doing, eaten each other up. Paddy sticks to his story, and declares it is a truth, but does not exactly explain how it happened.”
Rogers’ remarks were cut short by one or two shots striking their junk, on which the crew set up the most terrific shouting, and began blazing away from all their guns, jingalls, and other firearms. Jack and Alick, and Captain Willock and his mate, loaded their muskets and began to fire away, and to make as much noise as the Chinese, but they none of them at first took much pains to aim at the other pirates, their object being to make their companions suppose that they were fighting desperately. However, before long a jingall-ball grazed Jack’s shoulder, and that put up his blood.
“I say, it won’t do, we must drive these villains off,” he exclaimed; “if we don’t, we shall be getting the ladies’ throats cut, and our own too.”
“I am afraid so,” answered Alick; “it isn’t pleasant fighting either way.” So they now loaded faster than ever, and took the best aim they could. All the firing and shouting did not stop the advance of the enemy, and jingall-balls and other missiles came flying thicker and thicker round their heads.
“Those poor ladies! What will become of them? They must be very much frightened,” cried Jack. A considerable number of the crew were by this time hit; many were killed outright, and, as far as the midshipmen could judge, their side was getting the worst of it. Still the shrieks and cries in no way diminished, but rather grew louder and more unearthly. One large junk appeared to have singled them out, and was steadily approaching to board. Their crew evidently did not like this state of things. The old captain had just come up to them, with Jos the Malay as interpreter, to make some proposals or other to them, when, as the words were coming out of his mouth, a round shot took his head off, and his body was sent flying half across the deck.
