His main idea was that the pirates must have, somewhere in the archipelago, a base from which they operated, where they repaired and revictualled their ships, and where they warehoused their captured goods before selling them. The authorities on the mainland had assured him that no such dépôt existed on the mainland, so he only had the archipelago to trouble about, and now he determined, first of all, to examine every island. The archipelago is roughly divided into five great groups, and his scheme was to examine each group, one at a time. The three gunboats and the Huan Min, which had been placed under his orders by the Viceroy, were to do the exploring work, and he was going to steam slowly, backwards and forwards to leeward, in order to catch anything that tried to escape. You must understand that junks can hardly beat to wind'ard, and would fly "down" wind.
His orders to Rashleigh and to the skippers of the other two gunboats, the Sparrow and Goldfinch, which arrived a day or two later, were—"You fellows, go in and turn out the game, umph! and Old Lest'll bag it when it comes down to him;" and his orders were the same, though not in those words, to the Captain of the Huan Min.
Once the last gunboat had arrived, he did not lose any time, but weighed anchor the very next morning, and with the clumsy old black corvette and the three little white gunboats puffing after him, steered for the north.
He chose to examine the northerly group first, because the winds, at that season of the year, always had a good deal of "northerly" in them, and, as I said before, junks beat to wind'ard so slowly that they would never think of trying to escape in that way.
A Ting Hai War Junk (from a photograph)
CHAPTER III
The Vigilant under Orders
"Seven Bell" Tea Time—Sally Hobbs is Entertained—Mr. Rashleigh—The Pirates Raid a Monastery—A Fire on Shore—"A" Company Lands—"A" Company Doubles—A Fierce Tussle—Mr. Travers is Missing—The Return
Written by Midshipman Ford