“Look dere, sah!” cried Pedro. “Dere is dat Ching Wang now, sah! Oh, yase, dere he was, sah, as I say, killin’ your cockles magnificent—oh!”
The captain’s appearance at once broke up the ring, the carpenter dropping his bird incontinently and fleeing into the forecastle with the other men; but, the Chinaman never moved a muscle of his countenance when he turned his round innocent-looking, vacuous, Mongolian face and caught sight of “Old Jock’s” infuriated look bent on him.
He did not even let go the gold and silver cock, whose plumage had been sadly tarnished by a previous tournament with the Dorking which the carpenter had squired. No, he held his ground there before the galley with a courage one could not but admire, the only sign he gave of an inward emotion being the occasional twinkling of his little beady Chinese eyes.
“Wh–wha–what the dicken’s d–d–d’ye mean by this?” stuttered and stammered Captain Gillespie, his passion almost stopping his speech. “Wh–wh–what d’ye mean, I say?”
“Me only hab piecee cocky-fightee,” answered Ching Wang as calmly as possible. “Me chin chin you, cap’en.”
Captain Gillespie fairly boiled over with rage.
“This beats cock-fighting!” he cried, stating the case inadvertently in his exclamation. “I thought it was those confounded cats we have aboard the ship that ill-treated the poor fowls and prevented them from laying me any eggs, till Pedro here told me it was you, though I didn’t believe it. I wouldn’t have believed it now if I hadn’t seen you at it. By jingo, it’s shameful!”
Ching Wang, however, paid no attention to this violent tirade, only salaaming humbly and looking the very picture of meekness and contrition.
But his eyes, as I could see, being close by, having been attracted by the row as most of us were, had altered their expression, now flashing with a peculiar glare as the Chinaman, with a more abject bow than before to the captain, asked him deferentially:
“And dis one manee you tellee Ching Wang cocky-fightee one piecee—hi?”