Chapter Fifteen.
Ching Wang and I escape in the Sampan.
It must not be thought, though, that we were inactive all the time the pirates were coming nearer after the first warning of their unexpected approach.
No, on the contrary, we made every preparation, with the means at our disposal, to receive them with proper respect.
“Begorra, if they’d ownly tould us afore we lift the ould country we’d a had some big guns, too,” said Tim Rooney as he blazed away at a chap with a red sash on in the prow of the proa, taking aim at him with one of the Martini-Henry rifles that had been brought up by the captain from his cabin. “So, me hearties, ye’ll have to take the will for the dade, an’ this little lidden messenger, avic, to show as how we aren’t onmindful av ye, sure, an’ that there’s no ill falin’ atwane us!”
Yes, we had made every preparation.
The moment Captain Gillespie was assured that the the pirates—towards whom he had conceived a deadly hatred, although believing them lost in the storm that had caught us—were coming again in chase of our unfortunate ship, he woke up once more into his old animated self, his nose twisting this way and that as he sniffed and snorted, full of warlike energy.
“I’ll soon teach ’em a lesson,” he cried cheerily to Mr Mackay. “When they tackle Jock Gillespie, they’ll find their match; and, ye know, when I say a thing I mean a thing!”
Thereupon he bounced down the companion, telling Jerrold and me to follow him; which, as may be supposed, we did with the greatest alacrity, “Old Jock” not often inviting us to his sanctum.
“Here, lads,” he said, emptying out an old arm-chest which was stowed under his bunk on to the floor, “lend a hand, will ye?”
Of course we did “lend the hand” he requested thus politely in a tone of command, only too glad to overhaul the stock of weapons tumbled out all together from the chest.
There were a couple of Martini-Henry rifles, sighted for long ranges; three old Enfields of the pattern the volunteers used to be supplied with some years ago; a large bore shot-gun; and a few revolvers of various sorts—one of the latter making my eyes glisten at the sight of it, for it was just suited to me, I thought.
The captain seemed to anticipate my wish, even before I could give it utterance.
“Do ye know how to fire a pistol?” he asked Jerrold and me, looking from one to the other of us, with a profound sniff of interrogation. “Have either of ye handled ere a one before?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said I; while Tom Jerrold laughed.
“Don’t you remember, cap’en,” he cried, “giving me that fat one there, the Colt revolver, last voyage when you thought there was going to be a mutiny; and how you instructed me how to use it?”
“Oh, aye, I remember. I clean forgot, lad; this bother about the ship has turned my head, I think,” snorted he, not a bit angrily though. “Well, take the same weapon again now, lad, as you’re familiar with it; and you, youngster, have you got any choice?”
“I’d like this one, sir,” I replied, fixing on my original selection, as he turned to me and asked this question, “if you’ll let me have it. I won’t hurt it.”
“No, I don’t fancy ye will,” he said, sniffing and chuckling and twitching his nose. “I hope ye’ll hurt some of those rascally pirates with it, though.”
The captain then opened another chest, a smaller iron one, which he also dragged out from under his bunk, unlocking it with a heavy key he took off a bunch which was hanging up on a nail over his writing-desk and throwing back the lid.
This second receptacle, we soon discovered, contained a lot of cartridges for the rifles, there being a hundred or more of various sorts, some for the breech-loaders and some for the Enfields of the old-fashioned regulation size. There were also a variety of smaller cartridges for the revolvers, and “Old Jock” gave Tom and I each a package of these latter for our weapons.
In the chest, likewise, were two or three large flasks of powder and a lot of bullets loose, which the captain crammed into a leathern bag and told us to take on the poop with the rifles, Tom and I carrying up a couple each with the bag of bullets and powder-flasks and then returning for the rest.
In our absence “Old Jock” had ferreted out from some other hiding-place of his a couple of swords and a number of cutlasses, which he likewise directed us to take up the companion, he assisting us; until, presently, we had the whole armoury arranged on the top of the cabin skylight.
“Now, Mackay,” said Captain Gillespie, blowing like a grampus after his exertions, “take y’r choice, but I think that the two best shots in the ship ought to have the Martini rifles; and if I were picking out the picked marksmen—he! he! that’s a joke, ‘picking’ and ‘picked,’ didn’t intend it though—I’d have chosen y’rself and the bosun!”
Of course we all laughed at his joke, as he had taken such pains to point it out; and he was so pleased with it himself that it was some time before he could speak again, he sniffed and snorted so much.
“Not bad that, Mackay,” he said; “not bad—eh? But which of these things would ye like best—eh?”
“I think I’ll take the breech-loader, sir,” replied the other, suiting the action to the word and proceeding to examine the lock of one of the Martini-Henrys, which seemed to be an old acquaintance of his, for he loaded the chamber much quicker than I could manage my new acquisition; “and I don’t believe you could do better than hand the other to Rooney, as you suggested. He’s the best shot in the ship, I’m certain.”
“Y’rself excepted,” interposed the captain wonderfully politely for him; singing out loudly at the same time, “Bosun!”
“Here, sorr,” cried Tim, who had been waiting below close to the poop ladder, expecting the summons, and who was all agog at the prospect of a fight. “Here I am, sorr.”
“Well, bosun,” said Captain Gillespie, “it looks as if we’ll have to fight those rascals coming up astern and making for us. The cowards! They didn’t dare attack the old barquey when she was all ataunto in the open sea; and only now rely on their numbers and the fact of our being in limbo here. However, if they do attack us, we shall have a fight for it.”
“Bully for ye, sorr!” cried Tim enraptured. “It’s mesilf as loikes a fight, sure. I’m niver at pace barrin’ whin I’m in a row, sure, sorr!”
“Then you’ll be soon in your element,” retorted Jock grimly. “Call the hands aft.”
“Aye, aye, sorr,” answered Tim; and going up to the rail he shouted out in his ringing voice, “All ha–a–nds aft!”
“Now, my men,” said “Old Jock,” leaning over the poop and addressing them as they stood below on the main-deck—“we’ve got a batch of rascally pirates coming up after us astern; and, as you know, we can’t run away from ’em. What will ye do—cave in to ’em or fight ’em?”
The crew broke into a rousing cheer.
“Ye’ll fight ’em, then?”
“Aye, aye, fight ’em till we make ’em sick!” shouted one of the hands speaking for the rest, who endorsed his answer on their behalf with a “Hip, hip, hooray!”
“And one for the skipper,” shouted Joe Fergusson, who was a sailor of sailors by this time and had learnt all their ways and talk, dropping out of his old provincialisms. “Hip, hip, hooray!”
“And another for Mr Mackay,” cried a voice that sounded like that of Adams, causing the hooraying to start again with fresh force, this cheer being much heartier than the first.
“Now, men,” said Captain Gillespie, “as ye’ve let off all your gas, let me see what ye can do in action. Bosun, serve out the cutlasses and distribute the rest of the guns.”
This being done and all of the men armed in one way or another, the deficiencies of the captain’s armoury being made good by the aid of handspikes which Mr Mackay had thoughtfully ordered to be brought aft while we were taking up the rifles and other things from the cabin. Even Billy, the ship’s boy, got hold of an old bayonet, which he brandished about near Pedro Carvalho the steward, who had come out of his pantry to see what all the noise was about, which gesture on his part almost frightening the Portuguese, who, as I’ve related before, was an innate coward, into a fit. At all events, it made him turn of a yellowish pallor that did not improve his complexion.
“Carramba!” he exclaimed, as he retreated back within his pantry. “Fora, maldito!”
When offered a weapon, Ching Wang only smiled that innocent bland smile of his, producing his own long knife, that had a blade like an American bowie, being over a foot long and with a double edge.
“Me one piecee in tyfong tummee tummee, chop chop, pijjin!” he said, brandishing the awful blade in a way that I’m sure the “kyfongs,” the Chinese term for pirates, would not relish, especially in such friendly relation with their “tummee tummees.”
All the crew being now armed, the captain and Mr Mackay disposed them in parties about the deck and forecastle to windward, so as best to oppose the pirates’ attack; while the men provided with the Enfield rifles were placed in the tops, with the bullets and powder for ammunition when their cartridges ran short. Tim Rooney took his station with Mr Mackay on the poop, from which the advancing pirates could best be picked off, and where also were gathered the captain, as a matter of course; Mr Saunders, who carried an old single-barrel pistol with a heavy lock, which the second mate intended to make more use of as a club than to shoot with; and Tom Jerrold and Sam Weeks, as well as myself—Sam being sadly jealous of Tom and I from the fact of our having revolvers, while he, coming too late after they’d all been distributed, had to be contented with a marlin-spike—poor Sammy!
It was thus that we all awaited the attack, every man Jack of us being at his specially appointed post and on the alert; when the pirates—after pounding away at us a long time at a distance, with the result of neither wounding a soul on board nor damaging the ship very materially, none of the shot penetrating her hull between wind and water, the only thing we had to fear—at length mustered up courage enough to give up their rather unremunerative game of “long bowls” and come to close quarters.
I had got quite accustomed now to the rushing sound of round shot in the air and the waspish phit phitting of rifle bullets past my head; and I was filled with a wild excitement that made my heart pant, as I stood on the poop between Mr Mackay and Tim Rooney.
These two were peppering away at the leading proa and the junks, as they paddled in hastily towards the ship with their long double-banked sweeps, anxious to get in close alongside and so to be sheltered by our hull from the murderous and rapid fire which the wielders of the Martini-Henrys rained on them.
But every bullet found a billet in some pirate breast sooner or later, one of the villainous desperadoes falling over his oar here and another dropping down on the bamboo deck of a junk there; while, occasionally, some wretch would tumble overboard with a wild yell, in answer to the ping of the rifle, shot through the heart as dead as a herring, and going down to his grave amongst the fishes in Neptune’s coral caverns below!
“There’s that scoundrel of a fellow in the red sash again,” cried Mr Mackay, when the Malay proa, which still led the van, was only about half a cable’s length off. “There he is, Rooney,—do you see him?”
“Aye, bad cess to the black divil, I say him well enough, sorr,” returned Tim, carefully putting a fresh cartridge into the chamber of his weapon. “Begorra, I thought I’d kilt the beggar a dozen toimes alriddy; but he’s got the luck of ould Nick, an’ sames to save his skin somehow or ither. Here goes for him ag’in—take that now, ye ould thaife!”
“Ping!”
But the pirate captain, as the tall dark man in the stern of the proa seemed to be, only let fall the long crease which he had held in his right hand brandishing at us, the bullet from Tim’s rifle having broken his arm, that also dropped powerless by his side.
“You nearly had him there,” cried Mr Mackay, now taking a shot. “I hope I’ll have better luck though.”
“I hope ye will, sorr,” heartily echoed Tim. “I mint to riddle his carkiss an ownly winged him. The ugly black divil sames to kape a charmed loife, an’ I dare say his ould frind below helps him, the nayghur!”
Mr Mackay, however, was equally unsuccessful; for, as luck would have it, another of the pirates jumping up in front of the chief received the bullet intended for him.
The scoundrel who got killed was, certainly, one off the list; still, the small fry did not count like their leader, the loss of whom all of us thought might have paralysed the enemy’s advance.
It really seemed, however, as if the gigantic villain, who towered over his men, bore a charmed life; for, although our fellows in the tops with the Ennelds, as well the first mate and boatswain, aimed at him, while, now that the proa was within revolver range, the captain and Tom Jerrold, and even I, with my little weapon, pelted bullet after bullet in his direction, all of us missed hitting the swarthy scoundrel. We noticed, too, on seeing him closer, that he appeared to be more of Pedro Carvalho’s nationality than belonging to the Malay race, his features and shape of head being altogether different; albeit, he was fully as ugly as his rascally comrades in the proa and following junks—a hybrid lot of Javanese and Chinese and all the vile scourings of the Straits Settlements; long-haired heavy-eyed and sullen-looking most of them, with narrow retreating foreheads, and evidently of the lowest type of humanity.
As they got closer and closer to the ship, too, we noticed that several had red sashes round their blue frocks, into which were stuck fearful curved knives and the butt-ends of pistols; and so, with “so many Richmonds in the field,” it was not to be wondered that Tim Rooney and Mr Mackay had previously missed their mark—albeit now that the proa was near, it was strange that they could not pick off the pirate leader, who, as the proa sheered up alongside the Silver Queen, looked up at us astern and grinned a horrible sardonic grin, drawing the while his solitary left hand across his bare tawny throat with a most unmistakable gesture.
“Ping!—ping!” came from Mr Mackay’s and the boatswain’s rifles again in quick succession.
And yet again, marvellous as it may seem, they both missed. There was no longer time, though, for any more pot shots; for, with a wild savage howl and the beating of drums and gongs again, mingled with a shower of jingal balls over the ship, the proa struck against the fore-chains on our starboard bow, one of the junks steering to our port side at the same time, while another remained across our stern and raked us fore and aft with round shot, there being a couple of hundred at least of the bloodthirsty demons in the three craft assailing us. There were probably as many more, too, in the junks astern, which were coming up more leisurely, leaving their comrades in the van to bear the brunt of the fray.
“Now, men!” shouted “Old Jock,” who I must say came out like a brave man and a hero on the occasion, losing all his peculiarities and littlenesses of manner and behaviour—at least we did not notice them. “Now, men, we’ve got to fight for our lives! We must first try and prevent the pirates getting aboard; and, when we can’t do that any longer and they gain the decks, we’ll retreat into the cabin and barricade ourselves, and fight ’em again there.”
“Hooray!” cried the men. “Hooray!”
“And when we can’t hold the cabin any longer,” continued Old Jock, who seemed to be in a punning vein this afternoon, “we’ll go below to the hold, and hold that as long as we can!”
“Hooray!” shouted the hands again, full of the fire of battle now and spurred on by his words. “We’ll fight, old man, never fear!”
“And when we can’t fight ’em any longer, my lads,” cried Captain Gillespie, looking round at us all with an expression of determination that I had never seen in his face before, “we’ll blow up the ship sooner than surrender to this villainous gang!”
The cheer that followed this ending of his speech was so loud and genuine, so full of British pluck, so hearty, that the pirates absolutely quailed at the sound of it, holding back a second or two before they sheered up alongside with the intention of boarding us.
They only made a short delay, though, during which we were not idle with our guns and revolvers; for, the next moment, with another yell of defiance, the pirate craft flung their grapnels in our rigging and climbed up on both sides of the ship simultaneously.
“Come down out of the tops!” shouted Mr Mackay to the hands aloft. “Come down at once, we want all of your aid with cold steel now!”
These soon joined us, and then followed a series of shouts and cries and shots and groans which it makes me dizzy even now to think of; until, after losing three of our number, amongst them being poor Mr Saunders, whom we dragged in mortally wounded with us, we all retreated to the cabin, barricading ourselves there with all sorts of bales and boxes, and bracing up the saloon table, which we had previously unloosed from its lashings, to act as a shield under the skylight.
The pirates made a rush after us, but we were too quick for them; so then, leaving us alone for awhile, they proceeded to rummage the ship forward, where, from the noise they made hacking and hewing at the deck, they were evidently trying to break open the hold so as to get at the cargo. But the hatchways being constructed of iron beneath the wood their battering away at them did not bother us much for the moment, as we knew they would find their work cut out for them and the job a long one.
Meanwhile, poor Mr Saunders lay dying on the cabin floor, bleeding from a wound in his breast. The captain said there was no hope for him, for he had been shot through the lungs; and as I bent over him with a glass of water I had got from the pantry, he murmured something that sounded like Ching Wang.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Mr Mackay. “Where is the Chinaman?”
Nobody knew; and although Mr Saunders had been the first to miss him, he could not say anything else about him, or tell us what had become of the poor fellow. We were all, therefore, giving him up for lost, when, suddenly Pedro Carvalho, who, it may be remembered, bore no friendly feeling towards the cook, called out from the pantry window whence, through the jalousies, or open shutters, he could survey a portion of the main-deck.
“Diante de Deos!” he exclaimed, “dere is dat raskil Ching Wang yondare, chummy chumming and chin chinning does peerats. Yase, yase, dere he is! I see him! I see him! Carajo! Cozenheiro maldito!”
This news came upon us like a thunderbolt, but none of us would believe it until we had been absolutely convinced of the truth of what the steward had stated by seeing for ourselves. Yet, there was no mistake; for sure enough we could presently see with our own eyes, Ching Wang on the friendliest terms, apparently, with a lot of the yellow pirate rascals, who were of his own celestial nationality, away forward, the cook showing them all that was to be seen and grinning and gesticulating away finely!
Still, even then we could hardly believe in his treachery.
Somehow or other, too, whether through Ching Wang’s offices or not, of course, we could not say, the pirates did not bother us much during the day, only coming up to the skylight occasionally and firing down on us as well as they could with their clumsy muskets and pistols—a fire which we just as promptly returned, aiming wherever we saw a flash. They once pitched in one of their terrible fire balls or “stink-pots” of fulminating stuff to asphyxiate us with its beastly smell; but Tim Rooney, taking hold of it and plunging the obnoxious thing in a bucket of water, rid us at once of the poisonous fumes.
In the evening, when it was growing dark, a tapping was heard at one of the ports in the captain’s cabin; and both Tim and I were just on the point of firing, when, to our great surprise Ching Wang’s well-known voice was heard.
“Chin, chin lilly pijjin! Comee one chop quick, me wantee talkee talkee. Lis’en me, an’ you lickee kyfong number one go!”
“I thought he’d never turn traitor,” cried Captain Gillespie emphatically; Tim Rooney adding with equal warmth, “Nor I, sorr. I’ve allers found the Chinee chap a good Oirishman ivery day he’s bin’ aboord!”
The upshot of Ching Wang’s communication was, that the pirates were anxious to get all they could out of the ship and clear off; and, believing that he had joined them, they had sent him to negotiate terms with the captain, the pirate chief saying that he would spare all our lives if we would let him have what dollars there was on board and a ransom for the ship, on account, of course, of their not being able to get at the cargo.
Before Captain Gillespie could indignantly refuse making any terms with the rascals, Ching Wang proceeded to say that he had overheard the pirates saying that the reason for their violent hurry was that an English gunboat had been seen in the distance cruising off the mouth of the Canton river.
“Me gottee sampan,” continued Ching Wang, declaring now his real motive. “Lilly pijjin squeezee one port, me go along findee gunboat an’ catchee kyfong chop chop!”
“First rate,” cried Mr Mackay, who acted as general interpreter, knowing the Chinaman’s lingo well, explaining that the reason why Ching Wang had not gone off by himself in the sampan was that he did not know the right course to steer for the Canton river in the first place; and, secondly, he was afraid that the officers of the gunboat might not believe his story about the Silver Queen being assailed by pirates unless some European belonging to her accompanied him. “Nothing could have been more sensible, you see, cap’en; and Ching Wang’s got his head screwed on straight.”
“And where is this boat ye’re going in?”
“Sampan, go long now,” returned Ching Wang, motioning with his hand to the water below the stern. “Go long chop chop, soon lilly pijjin come down topside.”
His selection of me, though apparently a very flattering one, was due to the fact of my being the only one capable of squeezing through the port, Weeks, who had grown awfully fat on the voyage, being incapable of accomplishing the feat, while all the rest of us were far too big.
“How will ye be able to steer for Canton?” asked Captain Gillespie sniffing—“even if ye know all about managing the boat?”
“Oh, sir,” cried I, quite joyous at the idea of starting off on such an expedition and coming with a British gunboat to take the pirates by surprise and give them a licking, “Ching Wang’ll see to the sampan, as he calls it, and I will steer, sir, if you give me the course, sir. I’ve got a little compass here on my watch chain.”
“Humph!” he ejaculated; “I think ye’ll do, boy. Ye’re smart enough at any rate for the job; and, besides, there’s no one else that can get through the port. Ye can go!”
“Thank you, sir,” said I, grateful for even this semi-reluctant concession, being afraid he might refuse; and then, squeezing gingerly through the port and carefully lowering myself down by a rope which Tim Rooney hitched round the captain’s bunk, I landed on the bottom boards of the boat that old Ching Wang had ready below.
I recollect well Tim’s whispering softly as I let go my hold of the port sill, “Sure, now, take care av y’rsilf, Misther Gray-ham, sorr, an’ don’t forgit what the skipper’s tould you about your coorse whin ye gits outsoide the rafe; ye’re to steer nor’-nor’-west, wid a little more west in it, an’ kape a good look-out for the blissid gunboat—an’—an’ God bliss ye me bhoy, an’ that’s Tim Rooney’s dyin’ wish if ye niver say him ag’in!”