At the sound of muttering voices, the officer looked up quickly; the light of the lantern on his face told Phil that his suspicions had been aroused. Quicker than thought the midshipman drew back his fist, then he shot it forward, striking with force the startled half-breed squarely under the chin. Emmons lay where he fell, moaning audibly, while Phil quietly explained his act to the officer.
“He had the temerity to revile me,” he said; “but give me the rope. We should be on our way back to the city.”
Emmons was quickly bound, hand and foot; then Phil bowed ceremoniously and, lifting the stunned man on his broad shoulders, walked steadily down the ladder and into the launch, where he deposited the body with a great show of force for the benefit of those above. A few seconds later the launch had left the war-ship and was headed down the river as if she would again land in her berth at the dock.
As soon as the gunboat had disappeared in the darkness, Phil and Sydney cut the ropes binding the prisoner and raised him to a seat on the deck house. He was but stunned by the blow and presently opened his eyes, gazing about him in bewilderment.
“What happened?” Emmons asked, recognizing in the thin light of a screened lantern Phil’s anxious face bending over him. The lad quickly explained the reason for his apparently unfriendly act.
Emmons, with a genuine show of deep gratitude, thanked the midshipman for his unlooked-for deliverance; then he plied the lads with eager questions, and Phil gave him the unvarnished history of the night’s experiences; of the triumph over Ta-Ling, and then the ruse they had played upon Commander Ignacio and the officer on board the “Albaque.”
“I have, I think, papers which will reveal all that villain’s secrets,” he ended, patting the papers in the pocket of his long Chinese robe. “And the plan of the secret channel—I have that safe here also,” he added. “We owe a great deal to you.”
“Yes,” replied Emmons, “but it has cost me all that I have accumulated in ten years of business. I got warning this afternoon from the Tartar general that an order had been signed by the viceroy for my execution. I succeeded in hiding in an abandoned house in the foreign concession while the soldiers of Ta-Ling searched for me. After dark I tried to find Nam-Sing and the launch which I was holding in readiness to aid your escape, but when I reached the docks I found all my launches deserted, and their machinery wrecked. Knowing that I could not remain another day ashore without capture, I secured a sanpan and sculled to the nearest gunboat, believing I was then safe; but it seems that I had put myself in the hands of an enemy.”
“The blood of every foreigner killed should be laid to Ignacio’s account,” Phil declared angrily; “but we have now the means of exposing his treachery.
“Tell us about the mission,” he exclaimed anxiously. “Is it yet unharmed?”