When off Theodolite Point, hundreds of the war-boats pulled inside the island, and made a dash upon the small forts on the mainland, and the foreign trading vessels anchored in the channel; while many soldiers, landing from others, captured the works on the end of the island, killing man, woman, and child, as the affrighted people rushed from their houses and attempted to escape. The small forts, being surrounded by overwhelming numbers, were quickly taken and then set on fire. Three large war-junks defending the mouth of the Nankin creek were also fired by the enemy, before their crews were fairly awake or had time to deliver a second broadside. At this moment I rushed on deck with my comrades. Our lorcha was lying close astern of the last Ti-mung, or war-junk, and many European craft were at anchor closer to Tasohea Island, and nearer to the main river; some of these I saw boarded by the Imperialists, who instantly murdered the few Europeans, plundered the vessels, and then set them on fire.
I saw at a glance that nothing but instant flight could save our lives, if it were not already too late. The gunboats were everywhere around, firing away indiscriminately in all directions. Fortunately our old junk was fast alongside the lorcha, which was far too heavy to escape from smaller craft; so abandoning the latter, containing all our property and nearly everything we had in the world, with my wife and friends I went on board the lighter vessel. We then cut her adrift and tried to escape down the channel. The land on each side being occupied by hostile troops, and the upper part of the channel leading into the river being crowded with their war-boats, it was the only course open.
At the moment we shoved off and left the Anglo-Ti-ping to her fate, several gunboats boarded her from the opposite side, while others poured a terrible fire into our old junk, whose decks were covered with grape-shot, which had fallen harmless, from the hurried loading of our assailants.
While all around seemed a mass of fire and flame, the daylight obscured by the dense pall of smoke above, the earth shaken by the ceaseless cannonade below, and while the fiery track of rockets, accompanied by their hissing sound, and the "wheep" of the shot whistling everywhere about, kept up the jubilee of war and destruction, we had drifted with the tide a few cables' length away from the lorcha, and made sail to the light though freshening breeze that offered our only chance of escape.
A squall of wind was parting the heavy volume of smoke and fire, and coming towards us, when a number of gunboats appeared in full chase, keeping up a very heavy fire, the crew of the nearest throwing stink-pots, with which they managed to ignite our mainsail. I was just turning to my dear wife to hurry her below, when a volley of musketry was poured in by the troops on board the attacking vessels. I saw my faithful friend and companion, L——, fall to the deck, but almost at the same moment, struck by a spent ball, I became senseless.
I know not what period may have elapsed, but when at length I was restored to consciousness, it was but to realize the exquisite bitterness of my loss. Close to where my best and long-proved friend had fallen, lay the lifeless form of my well-loved wife, pierced by a flight of bullets.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] Alluding to Admiral Sherrard Osborne's 'Vampyre' fleet.
[42] Since the loss of Nankin, and all their former cities, through British hostility, this has resulted to a certain extent only; for still, with wonderful forbearance, the Ti-pings have not begun to ravage the country, their moderation in the neighbourhood of Amoy, where they now are in force, being well known.
[43] In honour of the Holy Trinity.