“Why, Ching,” cried Mr Brooke, “what does this mean?”
“No get away. Muchee velly bad man. No get to boat. Allee fightee. Get ’nother boat, and come along.”
“You couldn’t get on board us again?”
“No; too many velly bad men. Plenty blead; plenty fish; plenty meat. Velly nice. All in boat. Velly long time catchee.”
Our men laid down the oars with a great deal of care and precision, as if it was important that they should not be a quarter of an inch wrong, and our coxswain doubled himself up to indulge in a good long comfortable chuckle, while I could not help whispering to the young lieutenant—
“I say, Mr Brooke, I wasn’t very far wrong?”
“No, my lad,” he said, with a smile; “I give in. I was all prejudice against the poor fellow, but I was justified in a great deal that I said. Appearances were dead against him. There, I was too hasty.”
Meanwhile the stores Ching had bought had been transferred to our boat, and he had told us a little about his adventures—how, when he had made his purchases, he had returned to the landing-place and found the crowd gathering, and heard the men declaiming against the foreign devils who had stolen the boat they were using. The people were growing so much excited that he soon found it would be impossible for him to go off with his load to join us, and as soon as he heard the most prominent of the men shouting to us to come ashore, he felt that his first duty was to warn us not to.
“Catchee allee. Takee off to plison. In plison velly hard get out again,” he said, and then went on to tell us how he felt it would be best to hire a boat to come off to us from higher up the river, but in spite of all his efforts he could not get one and his stores on board till he saw the other boats push off to the attack; and then, when his men willingly tried to overtake us, urged on by promises of good pay, they had been mistaken by us for enemies.
“But velly good boat, sail velly fast. You tink it Ching coming?”