He wasn't quite certain whether he was going to make peace, but he couldn't stand out against a little delicate flattery, and we made friends again, and he went off with Rawlings, looking very conceited and happy.
Fat little Rashleigh was there, too, buzzing about like a bumble bee, and offering everyone a drink from his flask, and patronizing Ching, and talking about the gun he had captured. I never realized what he meant till afterwards.
Old Ching was pretty well played out, but looked proud and happy, and I gave him one of my last three cigarettes, and told him one or two yarns, though he didn't take much interest in them, and kept his eyes fixed on little Sally.
The Skipper had given him the job of escorting her down to the coast, and jolly well he had earned it too.
Parkinson, the Omaha's skipper, had a yarn with me. "Guess I shall be a flag officer before I'm sixty. Reckon they'll have my picture in all the journals in the States, and maybe they'll remember John A. Parkinson is still alive and kicking, up at Washington. They seem to have forgotten him awhile." He was "talking sarcastic". He was a fine grim-looking chap, without an ounce of spare flesh on him, and as old as most of the rear-admirals in our navy, though only in command of a small gunboat.
There was an old Scotchman who had helped Ford and the two men escape from the town to the walled house, and had been helping to defend it all night. He was a funny old bird, and didn't quite know where to "place" himself, and wasn't looking particularly happy. Old "B.-T." had recognized him as the chap who'd run the show at the other island, when "B.-T." was a prisoner, so he knew that we had sufficient evidence to hang him, and was only too jolly anxious to escape being killed by Chinamen in the meantime.
He thought that our best plan would be to go back the way we had come. It was more open country, and, except for the first three-quarters of a mile, better "going" and more open than if we attempted to work round the outskirts of the town itself, where the ground was nothing but swamps.
It was now about half-past one o'clock, and the Skipper thought that it was about time to be starting back.
The great trouble was the number of wounded who would have to be carried. Of Ching's original fifty men only forty-two could walk, and the two landing parties now had six men too badly wounded to walk. Young Wilkins, my bugler, and a seaman belonging to the Goldfinch were the only two Englishmen killed so far.
These two, Hoffman, and five of Ching's people had been buried during the morning, under the trees in the garden, behind the house.