The "Strong Arm" Returns—Boarding the "Hai Yen"—Jenkins—The Council of War—Ping Sang's Chart—Cummins has a Plan—Ping Sang Remembers
Captain Helston, with his left arm bandaged to his side, and one empty sleeve of his monkey jacket flapping in the wind, was on deck to see "No. 1" slip from her buoy and start on her fatal voyage. No sooner had her dark hull disappeared in the morning mist than he began to regret having sent her. A fit of his old irresolution returned, and he would have recalled her had she been within signalling distance.
He sent for Cummins—a grotesque-looking object in the early morning, unshaven and wearing a pair of huge sea-boots.
"You know, Cummins," he began, "I have a feeling that something will happen to her. There is no knowing but that she will poke her nose into some trouble. What induced me to trust to their word of honour I don't know, and it may simply be a trap to recapture Hopkins."
"Ha! ha! ha!" chuckled Cummins, chewing his toothpick, "it's too late now, sir; we can't communicate with her."
"Well, don't you think it might be advisable to get up steam and follow her."
"Can't manage it, sir. They are refitting the starboard low-pressure piston-ring, and it won't be ready for another twenty-four hours. You might send the Strong Arm, though. I was always averse to trusting that Englishman's word."
Helston, to tell the truth, was somewhat nettled at Cummins's influence on board and his somewhat arbitrary manner, and the implied "I told you so" irritated him to a degree. So, saying sharply, "Very well, we'll let her go alone," went down to his breakfast.
But ten minutes later he again changed his mind, and made a signal which resulted in the Strong Arm's rapid departure.
He expected both ships back by four o'clock at the latest, and as the hours went by and there was no sign of either, he became extremely nervous and restless, pacing up and down his after-cabin all that afternoon. At dinner he scarcely touched anything, and was just on the point of going out himself aboard "No. 2" or "No. 3", when the signal midshipman reported that the Strong Arm was entering the harbour and making her number.