Presently one of the pirates strolled past and caught sight of the decapitated doll’s head. He picked it up, looked at it thoughtfully and then called to another of the party—the broad-chested fellow at whom the midshipman had fired thrice in vain.
The two Chinamen discussed the find and glanced significantly at the bound captives. To Raxworthy it seemed as if they were proposing to cut the prisoners’ throats, on the principle that dead men tell no tales. To employ dolls as hiding-places for smuggled arms had proved so successful that the pirates felt inclined to repeat the process. It would almost certainly work, provided there were no hostile witnesses. Then the big fellow, who was either the chief of the gang or someone in high authority amongst them, stepped up to the place where the midshipman lay.
Smiling horribly, he tapped his bare chest.
“Leetle boy’s bullet no makee hurt!” he declared. “Now you speakee. You Engleesh officer from shippee that fight?”
“I am,” admitted Raxworthy.
“Little boy big officer-man?” asked the pirate.
The midshipman guessed what that meant: although he was a mere youth he might be someone of importance and therefore a likely subject for ransom.
Raxworthy shook his head and regretted that he had done so. It made his skull throb agonisingly.
“Your fliends payee fifty t’ousand dollar, may be?”
“They’ll more likely send a warship and make finish with you!” declared the midshipman boldly.
The pirate leered and made a deprecatory movement with his hand.
“English navee makee—finish,” he rejoined, and went on to enlarge upon his statement.
It gave the midshipman an insight into the Chinese opinion of foreign navies; for the pirate recalled the time when British, Russian and German fleets in the Far East had matters almost entirely their own way. He touched upon the rise of Japan’s navy, which owed its birth and development to Great Britain; how the Japanese fleet first destroyed that of his own country and next annihilated that of Russia in the Tsushima Strait; next, Japan’s action in clearing the Germans out of Chinese waters during the Great War.
Then Raxworthy was told how the short-sighted policy of certain British statesmen then in power had had its repercussions upon the teeming masses of China. Then he heard of the drastic reductions in the British Navy; how the powerful fleet that once sailed under the white ensign in Far Eastern waters diminished in both the size and numbers of its ships, while that of Japan increased by leaps and bounds.
“V’ly soon,” concluded the pirate, “no Englis’ shipee left. Before they makee go I takee you p’risoner. Fifty t’ousand dollar, p’laps hundred t’ousand dollar. We makee see!”
“You won’t,” said Raxworthy defiantly.
He was highly indignant, not merely because he had been ignominiously captured and was to be held to ransom, but chiefly because of the pirate’s scorn for that which he prized above all things—the honour of the British Navy.
“Then,” continued the Chinaman, as he passed his forefinger over the tip of his nose, “we makee cut one time. If no good, p’laps one ear; p’laps two. You makee see?”
Raxworthy understood. If the demanded ransom were not forthcoming his captors would deprive him first of the tip of his nose and then both ears, sending the severed portions to the midshipman’s superior officers just to show that the maritime bandits meant business!
The pirate chief went off, letting the full significance of his cold-blooded threats sink in.
“He’s made a dead set at you, Raxworthy,” observed the doctor. “Evidently he thinks you’re no end of a swell! I suppose they’ll be content with a mere thousand dollars for me; but I don’t think they’ll get it. Hang it all! why can’t they free my wrists and let me attend to this bullet wound in my arm? It’s bleeding too much to be pleasant!”
As if in answer to his words, another Chinaman came up with a bowl of water and some linen. First he gave the three now conscious Englishmen a drink in turn; then, setting the bowl on the deck, he cast loose the doctor’s bonds that secured his wrists and proceeded with a certain degree of tenderness to wash and bind up the wound. The bullet had passed completely through the doctor’s arm, fortunately missing the bones and arteries. Having done this, the pirate refastened the doctor’s arms, but this time across his chest, so that the injured limb obtained some manner of support.
Then Raxworthy’s arms were freed and the pirate stood by while the midshipman bathed the ugly-looking bruise on his head. After that the third officer’s wounds were attended to.
All this time the captured Ah-Foo had been steaming dead slow on an easterly course. No doubt the pirates had compelled the engine-room staff to carry on.
She now stopped. Raxworthy caught sight of the towering stern of a large junk—probably the one he had seen some hours previously, before the surprise attack took place—as she came alongside.
The junk was secured fore and aft and her abnormally large crew assisted the other pirates to tranship the cargo to her from the Ah-Foo. And not only the cargo; they commenced to strip the ship of everything of value.
And how hard they worked! In spite of the broiling sun they toiled, heaving bulky goods from one deck to another, and only employing the ship’s derricks when the weight to be shifted was beyond human muscles.
This went on until about an hour before sunset, by which time the Ah-Foo was almost gutted. Her lightened freeboard rose above that of the now deeply laden junk.
Meanwhile, men on the steamship’s bridge kept a sharp look-out for any strange sail. But none hove in sight, for a very good reason: by taking the Ah-Foo close inshore they had gone well to the east’ard of the regular steamship track for vessels bound to and from Chinese coastal ports.
The pirate captain then came up to where the prisoners were lying. Without a word to them he gave orders to some of the men.
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.
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?”