“S’pose that tower’s made of crockery, isn’t it?” said Barkins, whose eye was at the end of the telescope.
I looked at the beautiful object, with its pagoda-like terraces and hanging bells, and then at the various temples nestling high up on the sides of the hills beyond.
“I say,” said Smith, “can’t you tell Mr Reardon—no, get the doctor to tell him—that I ought to be taken ashore for a bit to do me good?”
“I’ll ask him to let you go,” I said; but Smith shook his head, and then screwed up his white face with a horrible look of disgust.
“Oh, what a shame!” he cried. “He gets all the luck;” for a message came for me to be ready directly to go ashore with the captain in the longboat.
It meant best uniform, for the weather was fine, and I knew that he would be going to pay a visit to some grand mandarin.
I was quite right; for, when I reached the deck a few minutes later, there was Mr Brooke with the boat’s crew, all picked men, and a strong guard of marines in full plumage for his escort.
The captain came out of his cabin soon after, with cocked hat and gold lace glistening, and away we went for the shore soon after; the last things I saw on the Teaser being the two disconsolate faces of my messmates at the cabin window, and Ching perched up on the hammock-rail watching our departure.
I anticipated plenty of excitement that day, but was doomed to disappointment. I thought I should go with the escort to the mandarin’s palace, but Mr Brooke was considered to be more attractive, I suppose, and I had the mortification of seeing the captain and his escort of marines and Jacks land, while I had to stay with the boat-keepers to broil in the sunshine and make the best of it, watching the busy traffic on the great river.
Distance lends enchantment to the view of a Chinese city undoubtedly, and before long we were quite satiated with the narrow limits of our close-in view, as well as with the near presence of the crowd of rough-looking fellows who hung about and stared, as I thought, rather contemptuously at the junior officer in Her Majesty’s service, who was feeling the thwarts of the boat and the hilt of his dirk most uncomfortably hot.