Still there wasn't a sound or sight of Mr. Trevelyan's junk, and we went very slowly up the channel, almost as far as where we had sunk that first pirate junk.
Then all of a sudden we could hear the six-pounder banging away somewhere on our left, and the tut—tut, tut—tut of the Maxim, and in a little opening in the rocks I caught sight of the white ensign I had given Mr. Trevelyan, against the dark shore, and could make out the Ferret herself, jammed at the foot of some rocks, and people on board waving their arms.
The Ringdove had spotted her as well, and we all cheered and steered straight across towards her—at any rate, the Ringdove steered and we were towed round—and the gunboat dropped her anchor about a hundred yards off.
The poor little Ferret was all over to port. She had only her mizzen mast standing, and was evidently hard and fast on the rocks, right in the middle of a small creek.
Mr. Rashleigh went across in the whaler at once, and as he got close to her we could see his boat's crew pulling very fast, and noticed some bullet splashes round the boat, and the Ferret's Maxim spluttered out. We couldn't see what they were firing at, and it was most exciting.
"Mr. Trevelyan, he's bottled 'em, sir; that's what he's done, sir," Sharpe said. He was busy repairing the tiller, and going about the job as if he was on board the Vigilant at Hong-Kong, or Portsmouth, or anywhere else where there was no chance of a scrap.
Well, that was just what it turned out to be. Mr. Trevelyan had fetched the mouth of the channel the morning after he had left me, hadn't been fired at by the battery, but had coolly crawled through and examined the shore on each side. He had found this creek, sailed up it right past a bend, and found himself in sight of a dozen or more junks all anchored together. He had carried on and opened fire on them, but found that they were too much for him. He had lost his mainmast, had two men killed when it fell, had to haul out again, and, not being able to avoid the rocks in the middle of the creek, had run hard and fast on them.
Jim told me the story, and how they daren't try and get her off again because she had such a big hole in her bottom, and how the junks had tried to come and capture her, but had to come singly, and couldn't face the six-pounder shells and the Maxim, and had drawn back. Last night they had tried to rush them in boats, but Mr. Trevelyan had rigged nets all round, and it blew very hard, and many boats were stove in on the rocks, and the nets and the Maxim gun drove off those that did not get alongside.
"It was a most awful night, Dick," he said, "but I wouldn't have missed it for the world, now it's all over. And what we should have done without that ammunition you gave us, I don't know."
All that day the pirates had been firing rifles at them from both sides of the creek, and only one man at each gun was allowed on deck, and they had had to be changed, because three of them had been wounded. Everyone else had kept down below in the hold, with the dirty water up to their knees.