“Him no tell nuttin,” observed Charlie.
“Fetch a cord here,” commanded Moran. The cord was brought, and despite Hoang's struggles and writhings the file was thrust end-ways into his mouth and his jaws bound tightly together upon it by means of the cord passed over his head and under his chin. Some four inches of the file portruded from his lips. Moran took this end and drew it out between the beach-comber's teeth, then pushed it back slowly.
The hideous rasp of the operation turned Wilbur's blood cold within him. He looked away—out to sea, down the beach—anywhere, so that he might not see what was going forward. But the persistent grind and scrape still assaulted his ears. He turned about sharply.
“I—I—I'll go down the beach here a ways,” he said quickly. “I can't stand—I'll keep watch to see if the beach-combers come up.”
A few minutes later he heard Charlie hailing him.
“Chin-chin heap plenty now,” said he, with a grin, as Wilbur came up.
Hoang sat on the sand in the midst of the circle. The file and coil of rope lay on the ground near by. The beach-comber was talking in a high-keyed sing-song, but with a lisp. He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably his own capture had delayed their plans. They had no rifle. A shotgun had been on board, but had gone down with the sinking of the junk. The ambergris had been cut into two lumps, and would be found in a couple of old flour-sacks in the stern of the boat in which he and his men had come ashore. They were all armed with their little hatchets. He thought two of the men carried knives as well. There was neither pistol nor revolver among them.
“It seems to me,” said Wilbur, “that we've got the long end.”
“We catch um boss, too!” said Charlie, pointing to Hoang.
“And we are better armed,” assented Moran. “We've got the cutting-in spades.”