Raxworthy and the doctor were then lifted and passed across to the junk. The pirate crew abandoned the Ah-Foo, leaving the wounded third officer to navigate her as best he might.
Then, in the short tropic twilight, the Ah-Foo, rolling heavily, with empty holds, stood away to the sou’-west, while the junk, deeply laden and crowded with men, hoisted her huge mat sails and, like a ghost, glided stealthily through the gathering darkness towards the pirates’ lair.
VI
The pirates were jubilant over their success. Their usually impassive features betrayed their feelings. The capture of the Ah-Foo had been a most fortunate coup—the best they had ever made.
Altogether, the crowd on board the junk numbered about a hundred. All were well armed with revolvers or automatics. For the most part they were tall, powerfully built men from the northern provinces, although there were a few slight wiry Cantonese.
Except for the half-naked helmsman and a couple of fellows on the towering poop, the pirates had gathered in the waist, where they sat eating rice and sharks’ fins and discussed the events of the day and the possible division of the spoil on the morrow.
“Where are they making for, do you know?” asked Raxworthy of his fellow-captive. “Bias Bay?”
The doctor shook his head.
“Not this time,” he replied. “I know this coast fairly well. I’ve been up and down it regularly for the last three years. We’re well to the nor’ard of that famous pirates’ lair. I fancy this must be a rival gang with headquarters fifty or a hundred miles farther up the coast. Did you notice that the junk altered course when the Ah-Foo was out of sight?”
“Yes.”