“Form a skirmish line and advance on the double,” he shouted to boat after boat as their keels grated on the sandy shore; then reaching the last boat, he quickly turned and raced back to join his captain.
Running to seaward of the advancing sailors, he had covered but a short distance when he found himself among a company of demoralized foreigners; their swarthy faces were ashen from terror. The midshipman at once saw the danger in this panic; already had it begun to spread to left and right; the companies nearest the one in disorder had halted and the sailors were glancing back uncertainly and with increasing uneasiness. A general stampede was not far distant. The leader of this shameless company appeared to be wild-eyed with terror. He seemed powerless to stop the threatened rush for the boats. The lad stood transfixed with horror. If the infection spread a panic would be the natural consequence, bringing certain defeat to the allied arms and leaving the mission helpless to the mercy of the cruel enemy. Without a second’s hesitation Phil raced up to the fleeing officer. Whirling him about to face the enemy, the lad cried out in sudden astonishment and misgiving, as he came face to face with the man who had so grossly insulted him in the bank at Ku-Ling.
Phil was conscious of a look of bitter hatred on the stranger’s swarthy face, but there was no time to consider aught save the danger of a panic and the defeat to his captain’s plans.
“Would you have us all massacred? Don’t you see that these Chinese will run from you if you will only turn and charge as you were told?” the lad cried desperately, menacingly emphasizing his words with his loaded revolver. Then lowering his voice, he added in flinty tones for only the officer’s ear: “Now run straight as you’re heading; if you turn back I’ll blow a hole through you!”
The foreign officer felt the muzzle of Phil’s revolver prodding between his shoulder-blades, close to his heart, and read the determination in the American’s voice.
“Encourage your men to follow us,” the midshipman cried as the officer moved forward uncertainly.
“Forward! Charge!” the officer ordered in a voice becoming bolder with excitement as he saw there was nothing left him but to obey.
The startled sailors recoiled in surprise, muttering incoherently to themselves, and then seeing their officer advance on a trot toward the enemy’s trenches, they turned, at first fearfully, then gaining courage, impetuously, and charged straight toward the source of the leaden stream.
A quarter of an hour later, Phil stood beside Commander Hughes in the trenches of the enemy, while the victorious sailors were following doggedly the retreating rebels. Langdon stood close by guarding a prisoner; within the pilot’s huge fist was clutched the Chinaman’s snake-like cue, while he eagerly questioned the terrified man in Chinese. The others waited impatiently to hear what intelligence could be extracted from the much frightened Oriental.
“I impressed upon him that if he did not tell me the truth that I would kill him,” the pilot exclaimed hurriedly; “he sticks to his story that to-night they are going to attack the big mission on the graveyard hills.”