Chapter Sixteen.
The “Blazer” to the Rescue.
“Hist!” whispered Ching Wang softly, catching hold of my legs as I came down the rope to prevent my feet making a noise on touching the bottom of the sampan; while he carefully guided me into a seat in the stern-sheets. “Makee quiet, tyfong watchee. If catchee no go, all up topside!”
I hardly needed this caution; although, after receiving it I was as still as any mouse suddenly finding itself in the company of a cat unsuspicious of its presence could possibly be.
It was quite dark now, the hull of the ship looming faintly above us, a big black shadow, and the water was without a glimmer near, save where, just ahead, the light of a flare-up, which the pirates had kindled on the forecastle, shone out over the sea there, besides illuminating the island beach—where a number of black figures could be seen moving about opening some casks, which, Ching Wang explained to me, he had assisted in getting up from the forehold, so as to distract their attention from us for awhile; for, knowing that these casks contained salt pork, and being acquainted with the predilections of his countrymen for this dainty, he was certain they would have an orgy before proceeding to further hostilities.
This impression of the Chinaman proved to be quite correct; for not only did the pirates rout out the salt pork, but they immediately proceeded to cook it in Ching Wang’s coppers, which were full of boiling water which he had got ready in the first instance for the purpose of throwing over the gentlemen as they boarded the ship. He had, however, subsequently changed his mind on this point, thinking that by adopting the guileless subtlety of his race and pretending to side with our enemies he might in the end be of more effectual service to us.
Of course the Chinaman did not mention to his new allies the original use for which the coppers were intended, as such candour on his part might have led to his getting into “hot water” and so spoilt his little plot, the complete success of which was further assured by his purloining Tim Rooney’s private bottle of rum from his cabin in the deck-house, and bestowing it with his benediction on the stalwart Portuguese captain of the pirates. This gentleman, being partial to the liquor, enjoyed himself to such an extent over the unexpected treasure-trove, keeping it selfishly for his own gratification, that he was more than “half-seas-over” ere his rascally fellow cut-throats had begun their pork feast; so, he was equally disinclined with them for further active operations against the ship, the captain and crew of which he regarded for the moment in a most benevolent spirit on account of their having saved him the trouble of making them captive, probably at the expense of several lives on his side, by locking themselves in the cabin below of their own accord!
I got out all this by degrees from Ching Wang, as, paddling in the most noiseless fashion across the lagoon where it was darkest, and carefully avoiding the other junks anchored out in the middle, he directed the course of the sampan towards the opening in the reef. This became all the more distinct as we got near its edge from the phosphorescent glitter of the surf breaking over the coral ledge, excepting at the place where the Silver Queen had steered through the rocks and breakers and entered the calm sheet of water within.
The pirates ashore on the island and on board the junks were all too busy to notice us, and indeed their eyes must have been wonderfully acute to have done so through the darkness that enveloped sky and sea alike, swallowing our little barque up in its folds; so, when we got well outside the reef and beyond the line of breakers Ching Wang put up a small sprit-sail, which he had been thoughtful enough to take out of the long-boat when he had secured the sampan, rigging it on top of one of his oars, and stepping it forward like a lug.
We then kept the wind which we knew was south-west on our port hand and pretty well abeam, steering as nearly as we could guess to the northward and westward, according to Captain Gillespie’s directions to me; for there was not light sufficient yet to see my little pocket-compass so as to take the proper bearings for making a straight course to fetch the mouth of the Canton river.
When daylight came, fortunately, not a trace of the reef or the ship and pirate craft could be seen, though Ching Wang peered over our starboard quarter, where we ought to have sighted any trace of them, while I shinned up the little mast too for a better look-out.
Nothing was to be seen, not even a passing sail—only the rolling sea far and wide as far as the eye could reach, now lit up by the early dawn and rose-coloured in the east, where the sun, just rising above the horizon, was flooding the heavens with crimson tints, that presently changed to gold and then gave place to their normal hue of azure. This the ocean reflected with a glorious blue, seeming to be but one huge sapphire, except where crystal foam flecked it here and there from the topping of some impatient wavelet not content to roll along in peace till it reached the shore.
I could, of course, look at my compass now, and I noticed that by keeping the wind abeam we had been working in the right direction during the night, the head of the sampan now facing pretty nearly nor’-nor’-west, “and a little westerly too,” as Tim Rooney enjoined on me at parting.
Ching Wang told me in his pigeon English that we must have already run from thirty to forty miles—“one hunled li,” he said; so, we had therefore accomplished a quarter of our journey towards the coast.
The sun rose higher and higher, until it was almost over our heads at noon, when the wind dropping I found it very hot. Besides the discomfort of this the fact of our not getting on so fast as previously made me anxious about those we had left behind, although the Chinaman told me the pirates would not be likely to start fighting again until it was getting towards evening, which was their favourite time for attack, as they always kept quiet in the day.
They would, he said, be especially afraid now of making a row in the day more than at any other time, for fear of the sound of the fray being heard by the gunboat, which they knew was cruising about near.
“I only wish we could see it now, Ching Wang,” I cried, thinking that before we got to the Canton river and returned with the man-of-war, all our shipmates might be murdered and the poor Silver Queen set fire to by the ruffians after pillaging her, as they would be certain to do when Captain Gillespie and the brave fellows with him could hold out no longer. “I only wish we could sight her now.”
“You waitee, lilly pijjin,” said he. “Bimeby soon comee.”
It was dreary work, though, waiting, for we were going along very slowly on the torpid sea, which seemed to swelter in the heat as the breeze fell; but about two o’clock in the afternoon the south-west wind springing up again, we once more began dancing on through the water at a quicker rate, the sampan making better progress by putting her right before wind and slacking off the sheet of our transformed sprit-sail. An hour later, Ching Wang, who had gone into the bows to look out, leaving me at the tiller, suddenly called out:
“Hi, lilly pijjin!” he shouted, gesticulating and showing more excitement than he had ever displayed before, his disposition generally being phlegmatic in the extreme. “One big smokee go long. Me see three piecee bamboo walkee, chop chop!”
I rose up in the stern-sheets equally excited; and there, to my joy, I saw right ahead and crossing our beam, a small three-masted vessel, showing the white ensign and blood cross of Saint George, the most beautiful flag in the world, I thought.
It was the gunboat, without doubt.
She had sighted us long before we noticed her; and seeing from our altering our course now that we desired to speak her, she downed her helm and was soon alongside the sampan.
Breathless, I clambered on board, a smart blue-jacket with “HMS Blazer” printed in gold letters on the ribbon of his straw hat, handing me the sidelines of the accommodation ladder, which reached far enough down for me to step on to it from the gunwale of the sampan; and when the lieutenant in command of the gunboat, a handsome fellow like Mr Mackay, addressed me, I could not at first speak from emotion.
But my mission was too important to be delayed, and I soon found my voice; a very few words being sufficient to explain all the circumstances of the case to the lieutenant.
“Full speed ahead!” he called out to the officer on the bridge, as soon as he had heard me out, directing also the blue-jacket who had received me at the entry port to pass the word down that he wanted to speak to the gunner; while Ching Wang was invited to come on board and the sampan veered astern by its painter and taken in tow.
The lieutenant turned to me when these orders had been given, although he did not keep me half a minute waiting; and, calling me by my name, which I had told him, said, “We shall be up to the pirates before nightfall, Mr Graham, for the old Blazer can go ten knots on an emergency like this. I’ve no doubt we’ll be in plenty of time to rescue your shipmates before they have another brush with the pirates.”
He then invited me to go below and have some refreshment; but I was too anxious about those on board the poor Silver Queen to care about eating then. However, I took a nice long drink of some delicious lemonade with pleasure, for I was so thirsty that my tongue had swollen to the roof of my mouth; while Ching Wang, who had recovered his usual placid and imperturbable demeanour, accepted the hospitalities of the crew with great complacency, his emotion not affecting his appetite at any rate.
If I did not care about eating, though, I was highly interested in the preparation of the Blazer presently for action, her five-inch breech-loaders being loaded with Palliser shell and the hoppers of her machine-guns filled; while the crew with rifles in their hands and cutlasses by their side mustered at quarters.
“I think, Mr Graham,” said the lieutenant, noticing my admiring gaze, “we’ll be able to teach your Malay friends something of a lesson—eh?”
“I hope so, sir,” I replied. “I don’t think there’s much thinking about it, though. I’m only afraid they’ll run away before we can reach them.”
“No fear of that,” said he laughing. “The Blazer, as I’ve told you, can travel fast when we want her; and if she’s not fast enough, why, that gun there on the sponson forrud can send a speedier messenger in advance of her, to tell the pirates she’s coming!”
“Will it reach them inside the reef, sir?”
“Reach them inside the reef!” he repeated after me in a quizzing sort of way. “Of course it will, my lad, and further too. That gun will carry seven miles at an elevation of less than forty-five degrees!”
“Oh, crickey!” I exclaimed; whereat he and the other officers laughed at my astonishment, which my face betrayed, of course, as usual. The crew, though, who were near were too well trained to laugh, except according to orders. Being men-o’-war’s men, they only smiled at my ejaculation.
It was getting on for sunset when we sighted the Pratas shoal, the masts of the Silver Queen being seen much further off than the reef, although I forgot to mention that her sails of course had been furled after she grounded; and, as we got nearer and nearer, we did not hear any noise of rifle shots, or the junks’ matchlocks, as would have been the case if they had been fighting again—my comrades I was certain would die dearly.
I hoped that they had not begun yet; for I could not bear to think that their fate might have been sealed in my absence, and all those brave fellows, perhaps, been butchered by the pirates!
Closing in upon the reef and making for the entrance on the south-west side, we noticed that boats were passing to and fro between the junks and the ship.
Just then a puff of smoke came from the stern of the ship, followed by the sound of a rifle shot in the distance, after which followed a regular fusillade of musketry fire.
The lieutenant had meanwhile not been idle, the man-of-war’s launch and pinnace having been lowered with their nine-pounders in the bows, all primed and loaded; and, on my getting after him in the pinnace, he gave the order to pull in towards the scene of action, the gunboat meanwhile bringing her big Armstrongs to bear on the fleet of junks in the middle of the lagoon, only waiting until we got well up to the ship before firing so as to take the pirates by surprise.
I cannot describe the feeling I had as we dashed forward, the thought of checkmating the bloodthirsty scoundrels and saving my shipmates being too great to be expressed by words.
Ching Wang, whom the lieutenant allowed to come in the pinnace with me, also looked wonderfully excited again, for one generally so phlegmatic:—he seemed really to turn his back on the traditions of his race.
We, though, rushed forwards; and, when close to the Silver Queen, the lieutenant ordered the captain of the gun in the bows to “fire!” into a junk that was coming round under her stern.
“Bang!” and a shell burst right in the centre of the junk’s bamboo deck, sending forty of the villains at least to Hades, for she was crowded with men. A wild yell of surprise came from the pirates at the report of the gun, succeeded by a faint hurrah from those on board the Silver Queen. This told us that Captain Gillespie and the rest now knew, from the second report caused by the bursting of the shell, that their rescuers had at last arrived, in the very nick of time.
Then a big boom rolled in from seaward as the gunboat opened fire with her five-inch Armstrong, shell and shot being pitched into the group of junks as fast as those on board the Blazer could load; the launch and pinnace, with Ching Wang and myself in the latter, pulling to the ship and boarding her on both sides at the same time.
Captain Gillespie and all the hands who had been intrenched in the cabin, now burst out of their prison; and after this, those pirates who were not cut down by the men’s cutlasses or shot, surrendered at discretion, as did also their brother scoundrels on the island and in the junks, who were all caught completely in a trap, there being no creeks here for them to smuggle their boats into, nor mountain fastnesses to retreat to, the gunboat commanding the only way of escape open to them, and her launch and pinnace within the lagoon having them at their mercy.
“Begorra I am plaized to say you ag’in, Misther Gray-ham, sorr!” cried Tim Rooney, wringing my hand again and again as Mr Mackay released it—all the poor fellows who had been relieved from almost instant death by the coming of the gunboat seeming to think that I had brought about their rescue, whereas, of course it was Ching Wang who ought to be thanked, if anybody had to be praised, beyond Him above who had sent us on our mission and brought the Blazer up in time. Tim, too, was even more absurd about the whole matter than any of the rest.—“Bedad, you’ve saved us all, sorr,” said he again and again; and I could only get him off this unpleasant tack by asking what further damage the pirates had done after I left.
They had not done much, he said, their leader having only just succeeded in breaking open the main-hold, and just beginning another attack on the cabin, when the report of the shell from the Blazer’s pinnace as it burst made the pirates scramble overboard for their lives.
“But, sure, I caught that chafe villain av theirs, at last, Misther Gray-ham.”
“Oh, did you!” I cried. “That chap in the red sash?”
“Aye, I kilt him as de’d as mutton jist now by the dor av me cabin in the deck-house, where, would ye belaive me, sorr, the thaife wor drainin’ the last dhrop av grog out av me rhum bottle!”
“He didn’t steal it though,” said I, telling him all about Ching Wang’s plot for making the rascal drunk; whereat Tim was highly delighted, patting the Chinaman on the back as the latter blandly smiled and beamed upon him, not understanding a word he said. After this matter was settled I bethought me of my bird “Dick.”—“And how about the starling?”
“Oh, that’s all roight,” said Tim. “He scramed out ‘Bad cess to ye’ whin he saw the ugly pirate cap’en fall, an’ sure, that wor as sinsible as a Christian.”
Everybody had got off pretty well, the majority only having a few slight scratches and flesh wounds; all, save, of course, the three of the hands who had been killed on deck in the first attack, and poor Mr Saunders, who, Tim said, was sinking fast.
He did not die yet awhile, though, having a wonderful constitution and persisting in eating and living where another man would have expired long since.
And the ship? She wasn’t lost after all, as might have been thought, albeit ashore there on Prata Island and inside the reef. Oh, no. Mr Mackay managed it all, and surprised everybody by the way he did it—making even Lieutenant Toplift of the Blazer open his eyes.
I’ll tell you what he did.—Our chief mate battened down two of the pirate junks, making them water-tight, and then, weighting them with heavy ballast till their decks were almost flush with the water, he made them fast under the bows of the ship.
The ballast was then taken out of them, when, of course, as they floated higher they lifted the Silver Queen; and a stream anchor being then got out astern she was floated out into the lagoon, where on subsequent examination she was found pretty water-tight below and staunch and sound all round.
To get her out of the lagoon, the passage through the reef was well buoyed and the ship lightened of her cargo, a large portion of which was taken out of her and stowed in the junks.
She was then kedged over the reef, as Tim Rooney had suggested to Mr Mackay in the first instance as the best plan; the Blazer’s officers and crew helping us to get her outside, and afterwards assisting us in loading her up again.
Then, our dear old barquey sailed for Hongkong, where she put in for temporary repair so as to be able to prosecute the remainder of her voyage, and here poor Mr Saunders died at last, and was laid to rest in “Happy Valley,” the English burying-place, that has such a poetical name and such sad surroundings!
We were detained nearly a month here docking, and during our stay Captain Gillespie rejoiced all hands by rewarding them for their pluck in fighting and floating the ship again with the present of a month’s wages for a spree ashore. “Old Jock” could well afford to be liberal, too; for a native speculator gave him a better price for the balance of his marmalade than he would have realised if he had fed the men on it throughout our home voyage.
Our repairs and refit being at last completed we set sail for Shanghai, casting anchor in the Yang-tse-kiang eight days exactly after our leaving Hongkong.