“Indeed, Junker, I am ready to confess that we owe our lives to you,” said Mr Hanson. “It required no little courage to carry the rope on shore in the way you did.”
I made a suitable, and, I hope, modest reply.
There was no room to lie down, so we all had to sit up and do our best to keep our feet out of the stream. As the morning broke the typhoon subsided, and at last we went out of our resting-place to look about us. The whole shore was lined with pieces of wreck. One of the poor fellows who had been drowned had been thrown up, but the bodies of the others could not be seen. We most of us had become desperately hungry: I know I was. Where to get food was the question. Hunting along the beach, however, we found a ham and a small keg of biscuits. We soon fell to on them. Though the biscuits were somewhat soaked with water, in a short time there was little of either one or the other to be seen. Mr Hanson said that we were on an island, but how we were to get away was the question. We could only hope that the Fawn might come and look out for us, on the possibility of our having escaped. We had just finished our breakfast, when we heard some cries above our heads, and, looking up, we saw a number of Chinese, who were amusing themselves by gazing down on us. We asked Joss who they were.
“Bad people! bad people!” he answered, shaking his head.
They seemed in a short time to have gained courage, and now some thirty or forty men, dressed like common fishermen, came down from the heights, and stood round us. Seeing that we were unarmed, they became familiar, and presently one of them signed to Mr Hanson to take off his coat. This he did, hoping to satisfy them. No sooner did they get it, than they set up a shout and laugh, and then signified to Dicky Plumb to do the same.
“I will do no such thing,” he answered, buttoning up his jacket.
On this a couple of fellows seized him and tore it open, and in another minute hauled it off his back, in spite of his indignant expostulations. Pleased at their success, they treated us all in the same way, leaving us only our shirts and trousers. Mr Hanson at length got hold of one of the men who appeared to be a leader among them, and endeavoured by signs to explain that if he would take us back to Hong Kong he should be handsomely rewarded. Little Joss, who was very quick in understanding our meaning, came to our assistance. At length the man agreed to take us for a hundred dollars a head. We had, however, to wait for a considerable time before the weather moderated sufficiently, and we were then all marched to the harbour, at some distance from the place where we drove on shore. Here another dispute arose among our captors. The owners of different boats considered that we ought to be divided among them. Finally, Mr Dicky Plumb, with Ned Rawlings and I, with little Joss, fell to the share of an old fellow with a remarkably roguish expression of countenance. We, however, could not help ourselves, and could only hope that the promise of the reward would induce him to take us back safely. In the evening we were carried on board different junks. Our boat was open amidships, with a small cabin aft, into which we were all stowed. Here we spent the night, for we saw from the first that our friends had no intention of getting under weigh till daylight. The other junks sailed first, but our old captain showed no disposition to follow them. We inquired why he did not sail with the others, but he only grinned and shook his head at us. He was waiting apparently for some of his crew. At length we got under weigh; and now we began to hope that before the next morning we should find ourselves at Hong Kong. We had not been at sea more than an hour when, coming round a point, there appeared a large mandarin war junk. Our old captain was evidently in great trepidation. Still he sailed on as before, hoping that the mandarin junk would not overhaul us. A signal, however, from her was seen, ordering us to heave-to. On this the old captain made signs to us to lie down at the bottom of the boat, and he then covered us up with mats. On came the junk. What was going to happen we could not tell. Presently we heard loud voices and shouts, and we felt that a boat had come alongside. We might well have given ourselves up for lost.
“Jack,” whispered Mr Plumb to me, “if we could but get hold of some swords, we would have a fight for it. I should like to die game. I have no idea of being killed like a rat in a hole.”
I felt very much as he did, but while there was a chance of escaping notice, I saw that it would be wiser to remain concealed. Presently, however, we found the mats being lifted up off us; concealment was no longer possible. We sprang to our feet, and there we saw a dozen Chinamen, with weapons in their hands, ready to cut us down, should we attempt resistance. Their officer turned upon our unfortunate old captain, who stood at the helm the picture of dismay; the crew were sitting forward, chattering with fear; without another word the officer gave a flourish with his sword, and the old man’s head rolled off into the sea; the crew attempted to leap overboard, but were mercilessly cut down. We fully expected to be treated in the same way; instead of this, the boat was brought alongside the junk, on board of which we were all ordered to go. The junk having cast off the fishing-boat, with the body of her murdered owner still on board, and those of several of the crew, made sail to the east. What was to be done with us we could not say. With oars and sails the junk made great progress. Our only hope rested on the possibility of being fallen in with by a man-of-war; but even then, if hard pressed, our captors were very likely to murder us all. Having got clear of the land, the junk stood away to the north. We three were thrust into a little cabin on one side of the deck, so small, that only one could lie down at a time; Joss, however, was allowed to come to us, and wander about the deck as he liked. How he had escaped we could not well tell; and now it seemed that no one intended to injure him. He told us, that, as far as he could make out, we were going to some place in the north, a long way off. We suspected that the captain of the junk intended to make the most of us, and would probably declare that, he had taken us from aboard a barbarian man-of-war, we being the only survivors.
“I do not at all like the look of things, Jack,” said Dicky Plumb to me. “I am afraid they will be clapping us into cages, and sending us about the country as a show.”