CHAPTER IX
A Game of Long Bowls
'Excellency, we have come to the end of the passage; we can go no further,' declared Hung, some two minutes after the Professor and his party had set out down the alley-way. 'A ladder leads to the deck above, while there are sleeping places for the crew on either side. Is it here that you will make a stand?'
'Halt! Put your loads on the floor and wait. Come with me, David.'
The leader of the expedition, still puffing heavily at his cigar, and showing an almost unruffled countenance in the lamp-light, stepped casually to the foot of the ladder and began to ascend to the deck of the native craft which he had chartered at Shanghai for the accommodation of his staff, and upon which such a treacherous and unforeseen attack had been made. But if he were the essence of coolness, and declined to hurry, he was by no means a fool, as he showed very plainly in the course of a minute. For while the Professor refused to be frightened and scared out of his wits, he declined at the same time to throw away the lives of his party for the want of necessary caution.
'Don't come higher,' he whispered to David. 'I'll beckon if I want you. Ah, it is still too dark for those ruffians to see us from the poop where they are at work. Come up, lad, and look about you.'
He tossed his cigar over the side, and David heard the hiss of the water as it met the burning weed. A moment later he was beside the Professor.
'Well?' demanded the latter, when some seconds had elapsed. 'What do you say to the situation? Critical I think, eh? Very critical. By the row those demons are making they have broken through into our cabin in more places than one. In a few minutes they will have a leader, and then there will be a rush. We certainly couldn't have stemmed it; they would have killed us with the greatest ease; but where shall the next stand be made?'
Where indeed? David cast his eyes in every direction, piercing the gloom as far as possible. The bare decks gave no promise of successful defence. To retreat to the wide cabin below, which served as the crew's quarters, was but to repeat a former experiment. There remained the rigging and the alley-way, and neither was very enticing. He shrugged his shoulders, as if he had caught the habit from Alphonse, and then turned to his employer.
'We can put up a fight anywhere almost,' he said. 'Out here we should soon be rushed and knocked down. In the alley-way we could hold them for hours. But it couldn't go on for ever; there are too many of them. My idea was calmly to board the other ship and push her off. That would give us a breathing spell. We could then discuss matters again and consider our plans from a different standpoint.'