At the same time Buster’s engines stopped and then commenced to go full astern.
Still turning, she came almost to a standstill within an oar’s length of the Supreme. Grappling irons were thrown, and the two craft brought alongside each other, and in a trice thirty armed bluejackets, led by Cotterdell and Sub-lieutenant Cartwright, swarmed across to the tramp’s upper deck.
Not a shot was fired. There was no need. Not a single pirate remained.
Quickly the British prisoners were cut adrift. The Chinese flag was struck and the Red Duster rehoisted in its place.
Then Maynebrace, who had received a bullet through the fleshy part of his left arm—he considered it a light price to pay for a most successful operation—went aboard the Supreme and received the thanks and congratulations of her skipper.
“That’s all right,” rejoined Maynebrace modestly. “Part of our job, you know. I suppose you’ll be able to carry on without further assistance?”
“I expect so,” replied the Old Man. “We’re one officer and the wireless operator short. The swine threw them overboard——”
“They’re in our whaler,” interrupted the Lieutenant-commander, pointing to the boat, now only a quarter of a mile away, for her recall had been hoisted and Raxworthy was urging his crew to “give way and pull like blue blazes”.
The skipper of the Supreme was overjoyed.
“We’ll be all shipshape and Bristol-fashion in a brace of shakes,” he declared; “and if you fall in with a yellow junk with a broad green band and her eyes ringed with red, just please give her my compliments and anything you like to make the blighters sit up. I reckon she carries eighty well-armed cut-throats, and they are as artful as a wagon-load of monkeys.”