Some little time afterwards the curtain was pushed aside, and young Ford's extremely disfigured face peeped through. I smiled at him, and he gave me a frightened cheerful smile and drew it back again.
Poor little chap! he'd been pretty badly knocked about. I ought never to have let him go on that "fool" errand of his. But he was as happy as a lord, because he had saved the Skipper's life.
In a week's time I was allowed to sit up for an hour or two a day, and in ten days' time to walk about a little.
Then the Ringdove arrived with six weeks' mails, and orders from the Admiral to proceed at once to Yokohama with the gunboats, to land all the wounded still requiring hospital treatment, and to join the flagship somewhere off the coast of Corea. We were to proceed with "despatch", as political complications in Europe threatened war with a country which maintained a considerable fleet in Chinese waters.
The Captain of the Huan Min had received orders by the Ringdove as well, and had to continue the search for the remainder of the pirates—those who had escaped in the junks.
Ching and his Captain dined with our Skipper that night, and, for him, "Old Lest" was extraordinarily gentle. He felt, I am sure, that he was leaving them in the lurch, with all this work still in front of them, and thought it was hardly "playing the game", after the magnificent way in which they had helped us.
I heard him tell Ching: "Umph! But for you, Ching, we should never have done it, never have rescued the little lass" (I saw Ching wince), "and everyone would have called 'Old Lest' a silly old fool. I only wish that we could stay and help you; but we can't. There's trouble comin' along, and the Admiral wants every ship he can get hold of, so we've got to be off." He grunted and growled a few times, and then burst out fiercely with, "'Old Lest' will never forget you."
He gave Ching a photograph of himself, and a silver cup he had won years ago as a midshipman. It was the Admiral's cup for the Channel Fleet in the old days, and he valued it more than anything else he had in his cabin. I told Ching so afterwards, in order that he should appreciate it all the more.
He had written to the Foreign Office as well, about Ching, and we all hoped that eventually he would get his promotion.
To continue the search for the fugitive and scattered pirates was like hunting for the button in a Christmas pudding after the thimble and sixpence had been found—a good deal of trouble, and not worth the bother when you did find it.