They were stooping over the German, fumbling with the knots which they had themselves tied, when Errington, who had moved unconcernedly towards the door, suddenly darted out. At the same moment Burroughs stepped back into the passage, pulled the door after him, and shot the bolt; and Chin Tai sprang at the bewildered sentinel, caught him by the throat, and held on until he was half strangled. Then Burroughs drew from his pocket some cords and a piece of canvas he had brought from the boat, and with Errington's assistance gagged and bound the man.
Before this was done, the sentinels bolted in the room had begun to yell, hammering on the door with the butts of their spears. The sounds attracted two or three servants of the yamen, who had nothing to do until their master returned. They came running into the passage from the outer courtyard, just in time to see the two foreigners, and the Chinaman, leap from the window on to the walk beneath. Instead of opening the door of the prisoner's room, the servants ran yelling towards the outer gate, to inform the guards that the English prisoner had escaped, and was being pursued by the German and his boy. The guards rushed up to the walk beneath the window, from which they could see Errington spring like a deer from terrace to terrace, with the two others close behind as if chasing him.
Burroughs had calculated that, even if Chung Pi should catch sight of them the moment they left the house, he would scarcely be able to grasp and grapple with the situation during the few seconds in which they were sprinting across the eighty yards of terraces that separated the yamen from the lakeside. They expected that his first movement would be to spring ashore, and Lo San had been ordered to lay the boat at the steps leading up to the parapet so as to give him an opportunity of doing so. But they had not reckoned with the effect of their startling actions upon the captain's wits, or with the clamour that had sprung up behind them. The whole population of the yamen was streaming out into the grounds, yelling at the top of their voices, many of them without knowing why. Su Fing's wife and children were drawn from their secluded quarters; cooks, scullions, hair-dressers, nurses, gardeners, all the personnel of the chief's establishment were out of doors.
Chung Pi, who had been sitting in impatient dudgeon in the boat, rose to his feet at this extraordinary hullabaloo, and gazed in consternation up towards the yamen, missing the three men, who were nearer to him, but partially hidden by the shrubbery of the terraces. When they pulled themselves up sharply at the stone parapet, leapt down the stairs, and stepped gingerly, as became the light framework of the craft, into the canvas boat, he sank, utterly unstrung, on to one of the thwarts.
This unhappy consequence of a surfeit of melon seeds and sam-shu very much simplified the matter for Burroughs and Errington. They had discussed in the room in the yamen what they should do if the genial warrior showed fight, and had come reluctantly to the conclusion that it might be necessary to tumble him into the lake. It was shallow, and there was no danger of so buoyant a man drowning. The fugitives were much relieved to find that it was unnecessary to adopt a violent course with him. It went against the grain to discommode physically so friendly a simpleton, to say nothing of the unwisdom of engaging in a tussle when a score or two pursuers were within a few yards of them.
At the moment of reaching the lakeside Burroughs signed to Lo San to put the engine at full speed. Then dashing past the bewildered captain, he seized the steering-wheel as the vessel moved out. For a few yards the boat planed, but by the time it had gathered way, and Burroughs adjusted the elevator and switched the engine on to the air tractor, the bridge was perilously near. But for the zigzag construction of the bridge, the boat could hardly have been prevented from dashing into it. But a slight movement of the rudder caused it to clear the bridge where it dropped down towards the approach on the lakeside, and it soared over the stonework with the narrowest of margins. From that point the grounds of the yamen were open for the space of more than a hundred yards, except for some clumps of shrubbery which were easily avoided. Free now to employ the elevating planes, Burroughs sent the vessel aloft, cleared the outer walls, dodged the trees beyond, and set his course straight for the river.
By this time Chung Pi had partially regained his composure. Not a word had been spoken; everything had happened in the space of a minute or two. The captain's dominating feeling was annoyance that the stranger had dared to bring the prisoner from the yamen without consulting him; indeed, in defiance of the contrary wish he had expressed earlier in the day. But he put it down to an ambitious desire to cut a figure before the chief; and since he, Chung Pi, would share in the glory of the feat, he decided to overlook the presumption and content himself by and by with a reprimand.
His feeling changed, however, to amazement, suspicion and foreboding, when he saw that the flying boat, instead of turning up-river, skimmed over the tops of the houses in the contrary direction. He heard the shouts of the crowds below, the ringing of bells, the beating of gongs, and glancing to the right he saw with dismay the smoke of the chief's launch high up the river.
"We are going the wrong way!" he cried in desperation. "Su Fing is at hand!"
"Be at ease, noble captain," said Lo San pleasantly. "We shall soon be at Sui-Fu!"