"I wonder what's up?"
"I don't know, sir. Hold on, they are signalling from the Customs."
In an instant the chief officer had a glass focussed on the flagpole at the customs offices. The other officers and the passengers stood silent while the little fluttering oblongs and triangles of red, white, yellow, and blue talked.
"What do they say, chief?"
"Wait for a pilot. Danger."
"A pilot! The devil! What do they take us for? Some tramp which has never been here before? Perhaps the typhoon shifted the bar."
While he spoke, McLeod had swung his glass upon the approaching Chinese boat. Two fishermen, standing up and pushing forward on their long oars, were driving it rapidly through the water. Their bodies, naked to the waist, and their legs, bare save for the shortest of cotton trousers, were covered with perspiration and shone in the sun like burnished copper. In the stern sat a Chinese in a dress which was an indescribable cross between Chinese official robes and a Western uniform.
"That's a Chinese military or naval officer of some kind, sir," said the mate. "They must be in a mix-up with somebody. Perhaps the French have taken it into their heads to annex Formosa."
The sampan shot alongside, and with unexpected agility the Chinese officer clambered up the sea-ladder.
"The captain will please to excuse me," he said in slow, precise English, "for offering to pilot his ship into the harbour. The captain's skill as a pilot is well known to me. The government of China regrets to find itself in a state of war with the government of France. Therefore, His Excellency, the Provincial Governor of Formosa, has laid down mines for the defence of the port of Tamsui. As I have knowledge of the position of the mines, he has commanded me to pilot the captain's ship past the mines into the harbour."