It was to be a case of all hands working all night to get the cargo ashore; for now that the ship had arrived in Korean waters—and consequently in the zone of danger—Drake was all eagerness to get his contract completed, to collect his payments, and to clear off out of harm’s way, with his steamer still in his own hands. For she was his own property, and to lose her would mean ruin for her owner.
Arrangements had long since been made between Drake and Frobisher as to the method of procedure upon arrival at their destination, and the mere fact that at the last moment the point of disembarkation of the cargo had been changed to Sam-riek made no difference in the plans.
It had been agreed between Drake and the official negotiating for the rebels that the latter should not put in an appearance at the point of debarkation, because of the possibility that things might at the critical moment go wrong, but that the Englishman should land the arms in his own boats, and convey them up-country at his own risk, to a place which, it now transpired, was called Yong-wol, in the department of Kang-won, and situated on the river Han. Here they were to be handed over to the rebel representative and his escort; after which they could be conveyed by water to the environs of Seoul itself, where, in all probability, they would in the first instance be used. This arrangement would necessitate a journey across the entire peninsula of Korea; but to land the arms on the west coast, where the Government troops were mostly posted, would have been simply courting disaster. On the east coast there were only a few scattered outposts of troops; the inhabitants were hand-in-glove with the rebels—although none of them had as yet actually implicated themselves; and the inhabitants of Sam-riek, in particular, could be relied upon not to offer any opposition to the landing, or to inform the Government authorities of what was in the wind.
When, therefore, about nine o’clock that night—at which time the decks were packed with cases that had been got up from below in readiness to be sent ashore in the boats—there came from the look-out whom Drake, as a precautionary measure, had posted in the foretop a hail of “Ho! boat ahoy! What do you want?” every man on deck jumped as though he had been shot, so little was any interruption of any sort expected.
Drake and Frobisher darted to the side together, as though moved by the same impulse, and leant over the bulwarks, peering into the darkness and listening intently for any sound of oars that should enable them to discover the whereabouts of the approaching craft.
Whoever the occupant of the boat might be, he was evidently neither an enemy nor a spy; for hardly had the challenge left the seaman’s mouth when the reply came out of the darkness, in a thin, high-pitched, timid voice: “All alightee; all alightee; it only me.”
“And who the mischief may ‘only me’ be?” growled Drake, who had been very considerably startled, and therefore felt rather annoyed with himself.
“Sh, sh! mastel,” urged the voice; “you makee not so muchee shout; it vely dangelous. Thlow me lope, so I climb up; I got big piecee news for mastel.” And the sound of muffled oars was again heard, this time evidently close to the ship.
“H’m!” muttered Drake under his breath to Frobisher; “I don’t much like the look of this. It seems as though something had miscarried, for this fellow to come out here at this time of night, with a ‘big piecee news’. I suppose there is no doubt the beggar really has a message of some sort for us, so I’ll have to let him come aboard. But if he tries any hanky-panky tricks, I’ll send him over the side in double-quick time to feed the sharks. I can’t afford to have this venture miss fire now. Jones, open the gangway, and throw a rope over the side,” he added, turning to one of the seamen; “and stand by to hit, and hit hard, if everything is not exactly as it should be.”
A rope was allowed to slide over the side through the open entry port; and a moment later it began to quiver as the occupant of the boat left his craft and proceeded to scramble up, hand over hand. Presently there appeared on deck a little, thin, wizened man, who might have been any age over sixty. He was clothed in nothing but a length of brown cotton material swathed round his body, and round the upper part of each leg, the end being drawn up between the thighs so as to form a kind of rough apology for a pair of knickerbockers. His lower limbs and feet were bare, and on his head he wore one of those high, broad-brimmed, conical hats that are so common among the Koreans.