Mr. Hobbs and Sally had not given him anything at all. Wasn't that nasty of them, after all he had done? But he still kept that tam-o'-shanter she had worn; I saw it in his cabin.
Then the Huan Min went off, to carry on hunting for pirates by herself, and we went up to Yokohama, and when we arrived, the Commander, Mr. Whitmore, myself, and seven of our men were sent to hospital.
I rather liked going, because it was so uncomfortable on board, with only one useful arm; but then we heard that there might be a war, and it was perfectly horrid to see the Vigilant steaming away without us.
Still, I Was jolly happy, because, after she had gone, the Commander told me all that the Captain had said about Mr. Rashleigh and his Report of Proceedings. That didn't square up everything, not by a long chalk. We wanted that gun, and we were going to have it, too, and before I'd been sent to hospital, Mr. Langham and everyone else in the gunroom had sworn to get it back, and had begun inventing plans for doing so.
Then three weeks went by, my arm had been put in plaster again, and back the Vigilant came. There wasn't to be any war, and she took us all down to Hong-Kong, and we found the old Tyne there, which made me think of the first time I had seen her, and of how miserable and happy, in turns, I had been on board her.
But just ahead of the Tamar was the Ringdove, quite close to where we made fast to one of the outer buoys, and when she was swung by the tide in one position, we could see that Chinese gun just at the foot of her main mast.
That made us all "bristle" up again and get most frightfully angry. We had almost forgotten all about it in the excitement of knowing that we were going south to Singapore, to wait for our relief ship to come out from England, and then go home to pay off.
At dinner that night we were as hot about it as ever, and we made up our minds again to get it, somehow or other. It was jolly difficult to know how we could manage it, and nobody seemed to have any good schemes to suggest. Webster's idea was to run alongside during the dinner hour, when probably only the quartermaster would be awake, but that was silly. We couldn't possibly do it in the daytime, and we couldn't even think of a plan for doing it at night without being discovered. We knew jolly well that if we were found out, there would be a most awful fuss, and we should get into hot water with the Captain.
We made such a jolly row, all shouting and suggesting things, and calling each other silly idiots, that Mr. Langham stuck his fork into a beam overhead.
That is a signal for all the midshipmen and cadets to clear out of the gunroom, and as the last "out" always had his "extra" bill stopped for three days, so could not get any sardines or pickles from Ah Man, we were all out in a jiffy, and left Mr. Langham, Mr. Hamilton the big Engineer Sub, and the "A.P." to work out a scheme between them.