When this terrible sentence was pronounced Prince Hsi was observed to stagger and turn deathly pale. Such ignominy as this he had never dreamed of; and to lose his life into the bargain—
With a lightning-like movement, and before his guards could prevent him, Hsi placed the back of his hand to his mouth, held it there a second, and then, with a groan of deepest agony, reeled backward and fell upon the cabin floor.
When they picked him up he was quite dead, and the cause of his death was revealed by the large ring which he wore on the third finger of his left hand. It had been made hollow, with a tiny hinged cover, and concealed in the hollow there had evidently been a minute dose of an extremely powerful poison which, from the odour of almonds that filled the cabin directly afterward, Frobisher recognised as being prussic acid, one of the quickest and most deadly poisons known to science.
With a solemn, courteous gesture Ting dismissed his officers, and they trooped silently out of the cabin, leaving the admiral alone with the dead. A little later in the day the body was enclosed in a coffin and placed on board a ship bound for Tien-tsin, with directions that it should be delivered to the Prince’s relations.
Thus perished a man who bad used his high position to attain his own base ends at the expense of his country and the lives of his countrymen. Nemesis had overtaken him at last, as it sometimes does evil-doers; and the high-born Prince Hsi died miserably, a condemned criminal.
Frobisher returned to his own ship from the court of justice saddened and disheartened. True, the Prince had richly deserved his fate, and China could never have known safety while he remained alive; but it seemed a dreadful thing that a young man like Prince Hsi, with all life’s infinite possibilities to one of his standing before him, should deliberately imperil and finally forfeit those possibilities for the equivalent of a few thousand English pounds, in order to be able to practise vices which had originated in the first place simply through the possession of so much money that he felt he had to get rid of it somehow, and so adopted the quickest means available.
But the young English captain had very little time in which to moralise over Hsi’s miserable end; for shortly after his return to the Chih’ Yuen, while he was changing into his undress uniform, a messenger came aboard with a request that he would wait upon the admiral again immediately.
Wondering what was now in the wind, Frobisher went across to the Ting Yuen, to find the admiral anxiously pacing the deck awaiting him; and he soon learnt what it was that his superior required him for.
It appeared that a ship had come in but a short time previously, bringing important news, which her captain had just communicated to Ting, to the effect that the Japanese had resolved upon the seizure of the Chinese island of Taiwan, or Formosa, and that they intended to dispatch an expedition thither under General Oki, in two transports, each conveying twelve hundred men; and as the intended invasion of the island was believed by the Japanese to be a dead secret, it was proposed to send only one gunboat or small cruiser to convoy the transports. They evidently considered that, the Chinese northern fleet being still under repair at Wei-hai-wei, and the southern fleet away in southern Chinese waters, they had little or nothing to fear, and that a very small measure of protection, or even none at all, would suffice. How the man had obtained his information he declined to say; but he solemnly declared that the news was genuine, and spoke so convincingly that he quite satisfied the admiral of the need for taking immediate action.
Ting therefore asked Frobisher whether it was true that the repairs to his ship were all but completed; and on being informed that another day’s work would suffice to render the Chih’ Yuen ready for sea, if her services were urgently required, he ordered the young Englishman to expedite matters as much as possible, get his stores and ammunition on board, and sail at the earliest moment for Kilung, at the north end of the island of Formosa, at which spot it was reported that the Japanese intended to disembark their troops. This disembarkation, said Ting, must be prevented, if possible, and the gunboat and transports were to be destroyed, or captured, as circumstances should decide. This ought, he added, to be an easy task for the Chih’ Yuen; and it would prove a very adequate reprisal for the sinking of the transport Kowshing and some of her attendant ships by the Japanese squadron some weeks previously.