Not only were they evidently organized, but they also must have had spies in the principal centres, because, not two months ago, a war junk carrying the monthly salt tax to the mainland had been surrounded by pirates and forced to surrender, in sight of land. She had put up a good fight, and was well armed—for a war junk—and not the least notice had been taken of several merchantmen sailing with her for protection. This outrage was the real reason why the Huan Min had been sent down.
Merchant junks always do carry four or five small muzzle-loading carronades, and these pop-guns had, up to now, been generally sufficient to scare away any sea robbers. Now, however, these gentry had got possession of such powerful weapons, that antiquated smooth bores were out-ranged entirely.
For months junks hardly dare quit an anchorage, unless they sailed in company with others, and if a strange lateen mat sail was sighted, would huddle together, and be only too glad to escape by disabling one of their own number, and leaving her a prey to their pursuer. You can understand the fright of these poor wretches, as they beat or drifted through the narrow channels, burning joss-sticks on their high poops, to implore the protection of one of their sea gods, and scuttling down below in abject fear when a pirate junk swooped down on them like a hawk, showing no mercy and giving no quarter, if any resistance was offered.
It was then, in this plight, that the Taotai had implored Captain Lester to give him assistance, and you can imagine that he was only too eager to take the matter up, especially as the capture of the Sally Hobbs under our flag gave him the excuse and opportunity he needed.
But he could do nothing till he had communicated with the Admiral and asked for more gunboats. This is what he did immediately, sending despatches up to Shanghai by the Ringdove.
After that we had to be content to await events, and we had to wait for nearly three weeks, as something went wrong with the mails.
During this time the Tyne storeship arrived with a lot of gear for us, as well as three youngsters. Only one of them—Ford—had originally been appointed to this ship, and I was much annoyed at two more being sent, because our gunroom was already overcrowded, and I'm always having trouble there, Langham, the Sub, having peculiar ideas of running the "show" with which I don't always agree. Hobbs and his daughter seemed to have taken up their quarters permanently at the Mission House, and one day, before we eventually sailed, came off to tea with me—they'd asked themselves, and I could not well refuse—and brought with them a German named Hoffman, one of the finest specimens of a man I have ever seen. He caught the Skipper's eye immediately, and the two were soon engaged in trying various feats of strength, at which, as far as I can remember, the German generally won, very much to the Captain's annoyance. Little Miss Hobbs bothered me till I let her go down into the gunroom to have all the "dear little midshipmen", as she called them, introduced to her. She made herself so popular there, that they sang "For she's a jolly good fellow", which made her fly back, in double-quick time, with tears in her eyes, to my cabin, where her father was smoking my cigars, and spitting, most accurately (and frequently), into my fireplace.
Hobbs told me that Hoffman was the original owner of the Sally Hobbs, had heard of her capture from some of the Ringdove fellows at the Shanghai Club, and had come across country to Ningpo, and from there to Tinghai in a junk. Mighty keen, too, he was to get hold of her, because her rascally skipper, who had pretended to be his agent, had naturally never paid over the purchase money.
He rather foolishly asked Captain Lester whether he could be of any assistance to him in his search for her; but this made the Skipper flare up and say that he hadn't orders to do anything, and "if he did get them", he growled, "it was time enough when 'Old Lest'", as he always called himself, "had proved himself a blooming fool". I softened the Skipper's fierceness as much as I could, for Hoffman was evidently hard "hit" by his money loss, and, as he had lived all his life in China, I thought that he very possibly would be of some assistance when we really did come to business.
Well, at last, after we'd almost thought the Admiral had forgotten us, the Ringdove did arrive, and little Rashleigh, her Lieutenant Commander, came on board, purple in the face because he would wear his sword belt too tight, waved some official letters at me, and went down aft.