The great steel cable vibrated until it fairly hummed with the strain, the Chih’ Yuen’s winches bucked and kicked until Wong-lih, on the cruiser’s bridge, momentarily expected them to break away altogether, and the white water foamed and roared under both vessels’ quarters as the screws whirred round. For several minutes it seemed as though the attempt was doomed to failure, and that all the cables would part without the cruiser budging an inch; but quite suddenly, as Frobisher watched, keeping the cruiser’s mast in line with a pinnacle of rock about a quarter of a mile behind her, he detected a slight movement. The vessel’s mast appeared to vibrate, as though the cruiser herself were pulsing with life, and then it slowly, very slowly, moved backward, until mast and pinnacle were a little out of line.
“She moves! she moves!” he shouted, waving his cap in his excitement; and then, like a vessel gradually sliding off the stocks when being launched, the Chih’ Yuen gathered way, and a few moments later she slid bodily off the rock with a plunge that caused the San-chau to roll as though in a heavy sea, overrunning her kedge-anchors before her momentum could be checked.
She was afloat again, however, and Frobisher breathed a sigh of thanksgiving. He had set his heart on commanding her, and he would have been bitterly disappointed if so fine a ship had been lost to him and the Navy through the despicable cupidity of a mandarin and the incompetence of a Chinese so-called sailor.
Wong-lih remained aboard the cruiser for another hour or more, until he had satisfied himself that the leaks resulting from her strained and buckled plates were not so serious but that they could easily be kept under by the pumps; and then, having signalled for the first lieutenant of the San-chau to come aboard and take charge of the cruiser, in place of the incompetent captain, he ordered the latter to accompany him back to the dispatch-boat under arrest, as a preliminary to his appearance before a court martial at Tien-tsin on the charge of stranding his ship.
Wong-lih and the captain having boarded the San-chau, steam was rung for, and presently the two ships proceeded on their respective voyages, dipping their flags to each other as they parted company.
“It was most fortunate that we saw those rockets last night,” observed Wong-lih, when he and Frobisher were again standing together on the San-chau’s bridge. “Had we not happened to be on the spot at the moment, the Navy would have lost the Chih’ Yuen, without a doubt. As it is, I fear she is rather badly damaged, and it will probably mean a few months in dock for her before she is fit for service again—which is all the more deplorable, because we may need her at any moment. At a crisis like this every vessel counts, especially in such a small navy as we possess. I am afraid you will not be joining your ship just yet, Mr Frobisher; but I have not the least doubt that, when we reach Tien-tsin, some congenial service will be found for you which will keep you occupied until the Chih’ Yuen is repaired. There is plenty of work, and very few officers to do it; so you need have no apprehension whatever on the score of non-employment.”
“I thank your Highness,” answered Frobisher. “I am rejoiced to hear you say that, for I confess I felt very sore when I saw my ship, or what was intended to be my ship, cast away on the Miao-tao reef.”
Twenty-four hours later the San-chau steamed past the Taku forts, flying the admiral’s flag to announce that Wong-lih was on board, and received and answered a salute from the batteries; and shortly afterward the anchor was dropped in the middle of the river, opposite the handsome city of Tien-tsin, upon which Frobisher now looked for the first time.