As the sun rose the hateful fog swept away altogether, and it was a most blessed sight to see the sun glittering on the muddy water, and the Omaha and Ringdove close to one another, and only about half a mile from the shore.
Little Sally looked such a forlorn, draggled little woman in the damp daylight, that I thought she'd be only too glad for anyone to say something kind to her, so old "B.-T.", moving in a very "dot-and-go-one" manner, and I went over to say "how d'ye do" to her and give her a treat. We were the best-looking fellows in the Vigilant, but old "B.-T.", what with his limp and a forty-eight hours' beard round his aristocratic chin, wasn't looking his best, I thought, however, that the bandage round my noble forehead (to cover up a cut someone had given me) would just about "fetch" her, and that she would be interested in about a dozen different specimens of paddy-field mud which were plastered over me.
However, she "bristled" up when we came along to pay her homage, and "guessed she didn't want anyone fooling round her—just yet awhile". Poor little princess! She was so miserable, sitting on the beach behind that bank, with the Skipper's overcoat buttoned round her.
About an hour after daylight, and the fog had swept away, our boats managed to find us.
Old "Blucher" had had enough shooting expeditions to last him till he got home, and jumped into the very first Vigilant's boat that had run up the beach, got under the thwart in the stern sheets, and never moved till she got alongside the ship.
The Skipper gave me the job of covering the embarkation, and it wasn't all "beer and skittles" either, for the Chinese kept up such a persistent and annoying rifle fire, that we had to get the Omaha and Ringdove to shell them out of some paddy fields and clumps of bamboo trees. They tried to steal round the beach and cut a few of us off, and just as we were getting "busy" with them, young Ford and Rawlings came rushing up again, right in the middle of everything, and squeaked out that fat little Rashleigh was taking that wretched Chinese gun aboard the Ringdove, that he had actually got it aboard one of his boats, and was just going to shove off, and that as Whitmore was on the sick list, and "B.-T." had gone off to the Vigilant, couldn't I do something? They wanted me to go to the Skipper, or something like that, and tell him that it really belonged to the Vigilant.
"My dear young gentlemen," I told them, when we'd stopped a bit of a rush, "if you'll be so obliging as to go out there and ask about five hundred Chinamen, who are very anxious to obtain specimens of our livers, to cease firing and stop where they are till we've decided who shall own their toy cannon, I'll do the best I can to help you. Tell them that the matter won't admit of delay, and no doubt they will oblige you."
They looked angry, and rushed away to try and interest someone else in the important question.
Gradually everyone was withdrawn from the shore, till there was no one except the Skipper, myself, and my marines remaining. We kept the fellows at bay till the barge came along for us, and then we bolted down to her and scrambled in, the Skipper being actually the last to embark. We had hardly begun to shove off, before the Chinese had lined the other side of that bank and began firing at us; but two can play at that game, and we had another boat and the steam pinnace lying off, to cover our retreat, and they peppered them pretty severely.
The Vigilant had come round to meet us, and we got away out of range all right and alongside her by seven bells in the afternoon, just in time for afternoon tea.