Upon reaching the port, I found L. all ready to receive me, and hastily passed Marie into the boat. Just as we shoved off, the door was burst wide open, and in rushed a crowd of men, some holding lights, and all armed. We hauled in upon the part of the rope fast to the drag, and, reaching it, set light to the lantern on its upper arm. Directly this was done we cut each part of the rope, letting go one end, and thus sending the drag floating down the river, while the other end was made fast to the bow of our boat. The lantern was not only intended to throw the people of the lorcha off our track, but it was to be a signal to our friends on shore to haul away upon the rope and pull us to the bank. It had just tautened, and pulled us out of a line with the drag, when crash went a volley of musketry from the lorcha, and we heard the bullets go singing past in the direction of the floating light.
Within three minutes after cutting the rope we reached the bank, and were tracked up stream by Philip and his men. Before getting abeam of the lorcha we had the satisfaction to hear a boat pull away from her in pursuit of the now distant lantern.
Upon reaching my vessel I took Marie to the best cabin, and left her with the ayah I had brought to wait upon and attend to her. For some time I was left to my own reflections, my friends being engaged getting the vessel under weigh, and making the crew track her along the bank.
At last Marie was ready to receive me, and on my joining her she gave me an account of all that had happened since our last parting. It appeared that everything had gone on quietly and happily until a few evenings previous to my arrival at Shanghae, when one night Marie and her relatives were startled by a loud knocking at the door. This was no sooner opened than in rushed ten or a dozen men, led by the one I had shot, who was no other than Manoel Ramon, the Chillinian I had rescued her from in the first place at Whampoa. He declared he intended taking them all to Hong-kong, where he stated Marie's father was waiting to receive her. He allowed them to take their clothes and a few light articles; they were then taken to a lonely part of the river, and carried on board the lorcha, which directly afterwards weighed anchor and commenced dropping down the river. Upon getting well clear of Woo-sung, at the entrance of the Shanghae river, the lorcha was stopped alongside a junk, and Marie's two relatives—her aunt and uncle—were put on board, and the vessels instantly separated. Ramon then informed her that her father was dead, that he had been made his heir, and that a settlement had been left her upon condition that she should marry him. For the first few days he had renewed his old protestations of affection, and treated her respectfully; but latterly, finding her aversion immovable, his bearing had entirely altered.
Rapidly flew the time, as, absorbed in our happiness, we remained unconscious of its flight; at last I was startled by the increased motion of the vessel, and knew that a fresh breeze had sprung up. This change had not lasted long, when my friend L. came to the cabin-door and beckoned me to go out to him. Wishing Marie good-night, and leaving her to obtain the repose she needed, I followed him into the outer cabin, and eagerly inquired what had occurred.
"Why, that confounded lorcha's in full chase, and will certainly overhaul us within three hours," said my friend.
I hurried on deck with him, and found it was just daylight, and although we had undoubtedly made considerable progress before the lorcha had started in pursuit, yet there she was, some five or six miles astern, and crowding all sail in chase.
After thinking it over a little while, we decided that sending the light adrift upon the river had brought about the pursuit. When the men sent in chase had come up to it, they doubtless saw at once that it had been sent to drift down the river, and as it was certain it could not have been started above the people they were in pursuit of, it was equally sure that we must be above it. We had not thought of this at the time; we only valued it as a ruse to throw off the close pursuit we expected, and so give us time to return to our vessel undiscovered. So far we were successful, but the whole style of the drag proved to the lorcha's people that we must be above them, and up the river, which caused her to give chase so soon.
We were at this time some twelve or fourteen miles below Nankin, and I at once determined to make for that place with all speed. The sails were wetted down fore and aft, and everything done to make them draw as well as possible. The breeze was moderately strong, but freshening, and the stronger it came the quicker would the lorcha overhaul us, for being of an European and heavier build, and spreading loftier and lighter canvas than we did, it would tell considerably in her favour. Fortunately the wind was dead aft, so our flat and shallow bottom was in this case an advantage, whereas, a beam or leading wind would have made it quite the reverse. The wind increased so quickly that in less than two hours the lorcha had rapidly gained upon us, and was coming up hand over hand in a cloud of canvas. She was yet more than two miles astern, but I was still some six miles below Nankin, and although the breeze was now very strong, I could not, with an adverse tide, hope to reach that city before we were within the range of her pivot gun.
We tried every plan to increase our speed; an old awning was rigged out as a stun'-sail upon one side, and a spare tarpaulin on the other, besides which, several large flags were fastened together, bent to a large bamboo, and hoisted above the mainsail to serve as a gaff-topsail. It was now blowing half a gale of wind, and over a three or four knot tide, the old vessel was staggering along under a press of sail she had never felt before. Following directly in our wake, like a sleuth-hound on the trail, the lorcha presented at this time a striking, though to us unpleasant, picture. Rolling heavily from side to side, her snow-white sails pyramid-like in form, and reaching from the deck to the very summit of her long and taper spars, now bending like willows to the blast; a long furrow of foam following in her wake, and two lines of water leaping from each bow, and tossing high into the air a silver spray, through which the morning sun formed myriads of tiny rainbows; the stoop of the vessel, as with a movement like the bending of a buffalo to the charge, she plunged forward burying her bows deep into the rushing surge, and anon raising them high above as though to shake the dripping element from her head—all these phases in the appearance of our pursuer made her look a thing of life and beauty. While gazing and thinking thus, I was abruptly recalled from the romantic to the stern reality of the scene. The lorcha suddenly luffed up, puff went a column of smoke from her lee bow, and while it was eddying amidst her cordage the splash of a shot a few fathoms from our stern, accompanied by the booming of a cannon, told me the danger had now commenced in earnest, and that our pursuer was aware of our connection with the affair of the previous night.