Before the Vigilant sailed, the Skipper brought "Blucher" up to the hospital to say goodbye to us, and told me many things. One was that he had allowed the old Scotch engineer, whom we had brought with us from the island, to go ashore and disappear.
"Umph!" the Skipper growled. "Had enough evidence to hang him a dozen times; but he helped our people in that house, and Ford and those two fellows would have been scuppered but for him, so I sent him ashore at night, gave him a ten-pound note, and told him to clear."
The ten-pound note was out of his own pocket, I knew well enough.
He was asking my opinion as to whom he should mention by name in his despatches, and, just as he was going, said, "Umph! Truscott, I sent that Report of Proceedings back to Rashleigh with a copy of Trevelyan's and young Ford's. Told him to rewrite his. Told him that I wouldn't forward it to the Admiral till I was satisfied with it, and he's written quite a different yarn. Umph! I told him what I thought of him—pretty plainly."
Young Ford had been bothering me, time after time, to do something about that Chinese gun which Whitmore, Travers, and Marshall had captured, and which Rashleigh had claimed and kept. From all that I had gathered, especially from Whitmore, there was no doubt that Rashleigh had no earthly right to it. I took this opportunity of mentioning the subject.
"Umph! I know the fat little beggar's got no right to it. Thought he had when he asked me for it, so gave it him, and let him take it away; but when 'Old Lest's' given anything away—umph!—he don't go back on his word. It belongs to me, I suppose, and I can do what I like with it, eh?"
After he had gone I let Ford know what he had said about that Report, and he was extremely delighted; but the possession of that gun still rankled very deeply, and I felt sure that he would not be content whilst it remained aboard the Ringdove.
From a few things Ford said, more or less under his breath, I had a dim suspicion that if it wasn't handed over to the Vigilant, the gunroom meant to do something or other.
"What's the game?" I asked him; but he wasn't going to give away any secrets.
For four weeks we were left to ourselves, and young Ford and myself were able to have many pleasant little excursions up country, and each day's excitement was the arrival of Reuter's telegram at the English Club on the Bund, with news of the gathering war clouds.