“Our work’s cut out, Herrick; how are we to pick out the right two junks from all this crowd?”
“I don’t know, sir,” I said. “But I don’t fancy they would be down here where other people might talk about them. I should think they would be up the river.”
“Well, we must find them, my lad, so use our brains as much as you can, and if you see a junk with a very evil-looking lot aboard, just give me a hint as we pass.”
“I’ll ask Ching what he thinks, sir.”
Mr Brooke nodded, and I turned to the interpreter, who was squatting in the bottom of the boat right aft, his eyes half shut, and apparently taking no heed of anything.
“How are we to know which are the junks we want, Ching?” I said.
“Oh, velly soon find,” he said. “Ching look along. Not these. Pilate boat big and tall. Empty. No got big calgo aboard. Stand high up now. Velly full and low down when full of plize-money.”
“Then you don’t think they are down here?”
He shook his head as he glanced at the various forms of trading-boat moored off the town, from the tiny sampan to the heavy, clumsy mat-sailed vessel, whose stern towered up, and whose great bamboo yards looked as if they must be perfectly unmanageable.
“What do you think we had better do, then—row about here and watch?”