"Very lucky that I met you," Helston said eagerly. "I've telegraphed to a dozen men who were up there, and none know anything beyond doubtful rumours."
"I guess most of the Europeans were just searching around about that particular time, and looting or getting quit of the place, if they'd been aiding the Pigtails," drawled the stranger.
"You didn't hear anything about the cruisers which went ashore, I suppose?" asked Helston.
"Didn't I! Didn't I! I knocked up against a little Scotchman—chief engineer aboard the Mao Yuen when her old skipper shoved her nose on shore and cut. He was just about in a hair-raising funk, for the mandarins wanted his head, and the Japs his body. I packed him off in a steamer, and he was mighty glad to take his head with him, you bet!"
"Did he tell you anything of the condition of his ship?" asked Helston, "for she is one of those which have disappeared."
"Didn't he!" roared the American, smacking his thigh. "Why, all the time he was under my wing he kept shouting out, 'Oh God! Oh God!—two hundred dead bodies on board, burning fore and aft—they'll kill me if I go on deck—the boilers won't stand the pressure, and my home's in Glasgy'. He was just on being properly crazed, and during the night woke me by shrieking, 'We're on the rocks, we're on the rocks—the steam-pipe's burst, and I can't get on deck—the steam, the steam', and I found him trying to climb up the wall."
"She must have damaged herself very badly if the shock smashed her main steam-pipe," said Helston; "and they tell me at the Embassy that the Yao Yuen, her sister ship, which was also reported refloated, was completely gutted. It seems to me that any amount of patching up won't make these two much of fighting ships."
"You've just hit it, Captain. Give me the old Monocacy—you remember the old tub—and I reckon I'd wash out the whole crowd."
He left the carriage at their first stopping-place.
"Lucky we met him, Doc," said Helston; "his information may be very valuable, and he seems a fine type of an American naval officer."