A significant exclamation from Scarterfield called me to his side—he, aided by one of the blue-jackets, was examining the body of Lo Chuh Fen.
"Look here!" he murmured as I went up to him. "This chap has been searched! After he was dead, I mean. There's a body-belt that he wore—it's been violently torn from him, his clothing ripped to get at it, and the belt itself hacked to pieces in the endeavour to find—something! Whose work has that been!"
"The work of the man who got away in the boat," said I. "Of course! He's been after those rubies and pearls, Scarterfield."
"We must be after him," he said. "You say you think he was wounded in getting away?"
"He was certainly wounded," I affirmed. "I saw him fall headlong in the boat after the first shot; he recovered himself, fired the shot which no doubt finished Baxter, and must have been wounded again, for the two men again fired simultaneously, and the man in the boat swayed at that second shot. But once more he pulled himself together and rowed away."
"Well, if he's wounded, he can't get far without attracting notice," declared Scarterfield. "We'll organize a search for him presently. But first let's have a look into the quarters that these Chinamen occupied."
The smoke of the fire—which seemed to have broken out in the forecastle and had been confined to it by the efforts of the sailors from the destroyer—had now almost cleared away, and we went forward to the galley. The fire had not spread to that, and after the scenes of blood and violence astern and in the cabin the place looked refreshingly spick and span; there was, indeed, an unusual air of neatness and cleanliness about it. The various pots and pans shone gaily in the sun's glittering lights; every utensil was in its place; evidently the galley's controlling spirit had been a meticulously careful person who hated disorder as heartily as dirt. And on a shelf near the stove was laid out what I took to be the things which the vanished cook, whoever he might be, had destined for breakfast—a tempting one of kidneys and bacon, soles, eggs, a curry. I gathered from this, and pointed my conclusion out to Scarterfield, that the presiding genius of the galley had had no idea of the mutiny into which he had been plunged soon after midnight.
"Aye!" said Scarterfield. "Just so—I see your point. And—you think that man of Lorrimore's, Wing, was aboard, and if so, he's the man who's escaped?"
"I've strong suspicions," said I. "Yet, they were based on a plum-cake."
"Well, and I've known of worse clues," he rejoined. "But—I wonder? Now, if only we knew——"