The Hankow Lin was lying in the Pearl River, off Whampoa, some twelve miles below Canton, to which anchorage all sailing vessels having business at this port of the Celestial Empire are restricted by the mandarins, only steamers being permitted to ascend the reaches of the river to the city proper and anchor in front of Shah Mien, the English settlement.
The vessel had shipped all her tea and silk, which formed a valuable cargo; and, with her anchor hove short, so that she seemed to ride just over it, and her topsails loose all handy to let fall and sheet home, she appeared ready to start at a moment’s notice on her homeward voyage—down the ugly Canton River and across the pathless Indian seas and the miles of weary ocean journey that lay between her and her final destination, “the tight little island,” with its now historical “streak of silver sea,” supposed to guard it from Continental invasion.
What delayed the Hankow Lin?
Ah! her captain could tell perhaps, for it might be taken for granted that there was some urgent reason for his remaining here with no possible object to gain when his cargo was stowed and the ship homeward-bound. The seamen could make nothing of it, however; and there was much grumbling forwards at this unlooked-for hitch in their departure from the land of “chin chins” and “no bony Johnny.”
Jem Backstay, who was a stalwart, able-bodied seaman, and as smart a “hand” as could be found in a day’s cruise, did not appear at all convinced by what his chum Bill, the boatswain, had said, for he returned again to the conversation after the latter had apparently ended it with his monosyllabic “aye.”
“Lor’, mate!” said he, “I thinks your old brains are wool-gathering about pirates. I’ve been sailing in these here China seas since I were no higher than your thumb and I never see none.”
“Haven’t you?” muttered the other disdainfully.
“No, never a one.”
“And you’ve never seen none of ’em h’executed, as I have, at Canton, in batches of a dozen or more?”
“No, Bill; how does they do it?”