The destroyers sleepily would join them after their night's watching, and there the squadron would lie till sunset came, and the same routine commenced again.
To the Commander of the squadron and to all his officers, to say nothing of the men, it became very apparent that events had reached an impasse.
If the enemy chose but to lie quiet in their island stronghold and wait, a time would surely come when the blockading squadron would have to depart. No ships, however stoutly built, can stand constant work for any length of time in those stormy seas without a refuge in which occasionally to shelter, coal, revictual, and give their crews a "run ashore". Men and officers, too, become "stale", dispirited, and discontented with the monotony of blockade-work and the monotony of an unvarying and not too palatable diet.
Once this "staleness" develops, the sick-list grows apace, and general slackness makes itself felt.
There was no doubt whatever that the clever schemers in that little island had laid their plans accordingly, and were quite content to allow Captain Helston and his ships to wear themselves out in a wearisome blockade, probably conjecturing that, with the dislike of prolonged inaction, the Englishmen would throw their cards on the table and make a combined attack on the island, which they considered—and justly, as events turned out—was impregnable to sea attack.
Nor were they wrong in their supposition, for at the end of ten days' monotony, ten days during which not a sail nor the smoke of a steamer had broken the empty circle of the horizon, everyone became impatient, and no one more so than the nervous, highly-strung Helston.
He knew well enough that every day which elapsed meant a further encroachment on the funds of the China Defence Association, and if he had perchance forgotten this fact, Ping Sang was there at his elbow to jog his memory and counsel a more active policy.
"My dear Captain," he would say, patting Helston's still empty sleeve, "we can't remain here for the remainder of our lives. I've already spent nearly a million and a half, and we seem as far off as ever from securing these pirates. With all your guns and with all your fine English sailor men, you surely ought to be able to knock the pirate syndicate and their Chinese bandits on the head."
Nothing that Helston or anyone else could tell him would make him understand the rashness of opposing ships to forts, especially ships with but scanty reserves of ammunition (in the hold of the stout little Sylvia), and with no place of refuge in case of damage.
Hunter, the lion-hearted, was also for trying the weight of his metal against the shore guns.