Chapter Thirty Three.
At Hong Kong again!
“Hullo, Bamboo Jack!” cried Larkyns, as I came up the side of our old ship again after a tedious voyage down the Peiho in one of the gunboats, accompanied by Ned Anstruther, my comrade not merely in arms but in captivity. “Chin, chin, my hearty, I’m delighted to see you and Ned safe and sound, after all your wanderings and wonderful adventures, which a little bird, not caged, though, has told us of! Come below, now, to the gunroom, old chap, and have ‘one piecee chow chow,’ and spin us a yarn about it all yourself. It seems like old times seeing your ugly old phiz once more, by Jove!”
All the other fellows, too, appeared quite as pleased to see us both back, except that surly brute Andrews, who looked as if he wished the Chinese had made puppy pies of Ned and myself.
Truth to say, I was jolly glad myself to be on board again with my messmates, amid the old familiar scenes and surroundings.
Indeed, when swinging in my hammock the first night after my return, I fancied all that occurred was but a dream—so it seemed to my heated imagination—and that I had never left the Candahar for a day, nor passed through such exciting experiences!
A week or so later, after all the details of our treaty with the Chinese Government had been settled, and Lord Elgin departed from Pekin on his way to Europe on the conclusion of his highly successful mission, we likewise weighed anchor before the Gulf of Pechili should be closed by the ice and our egress therefrom barred for the winter months; and then, bidding a long farewell to the poetically-named but “beastly hole of a place,” as Mr Jellaby called it, the “Bay of the Wide-spreading-sand Islands,” we sailed for Hong Kong.
Here we arrived at the end of November, the north-east monsoon being all in our favour, and the current along the coast as well; both these favouring causes making the old Candahar travel as if “Old Nick” was after her.
None of us were sorry to be amongst an English-speaking community once more, with its attendant advantage of our being able to procure most of the comforts and luxuries of civilised life, for our commissariat was in the most deplorable condition.