“He would have the satisfaction of seeing us massacred.”
“But what satisfaction could that be, sir?” I cried. “We have always been his friends.”
“The Chinese hate the outer barbarians and foreign devils, as they call us, my lad. They are obliged to tolerate our presence, but the common people, as you know well, would feel an intense pleasure in murdering every European they came across.”
“All the same, sir,” I said, “I don’t believe poor old Ching would do anything that was against us.”
“Well, we shall see. But what an escape, my lad! What a trap we were in!”
“And how capital to get out of it without having a man hurt.”
“It’s splendid, my lad. The captain will be delighted at that, and forgive me about the boat.”
“But we had to run away, sir,” I said.
“Rather strange running away to charge that boat as we did! But don’t you take it into your head, my lad, that it is cowardly to retreat at the proper time. It is madness to go throwing away the lives of your men when you can do no good by fighting. It might sound very grand and heroic for us to have fought both those boats, and then tried to capture the junks; but we must have been cut to pieces in the attempt, and what then—”
“We should have been able to say that we did not turn tail upon our enemies.”