“Yes.”
“She was making in the direction of Bias Bay. That was to throw our people off the scent. The pirates of Bias Bay will get blamed for this. Probably a couple of destroyers will be sent to inquire into the matter. Meanwhile the gang goes unsuspected.”
“But will they ask for our ransom to be sent there?”
“No fear; they’ll conduct negotiations through an agent who, perhaps, lives in Canton or Amoy. Hello!”
A Chinaman cast adrift their wrist lashings and handed each of them a wooden bowl containing a greasy substance looking like porridge.
The doctor sniffed at it.
“Rice and fish,” he declared. “Might be worse: rotten eggs and seaweed for example.”
“Dashed if I can eat the stuff,” exclaimed the midshipman.
“You’d better,” advised his companion. “We may have to eat worse stuff than that before we’re set free.”
“Set free?” echoed Raxworthy. “I’m not going to wait for that, if I can possibly help it. I’m going to make a dash for it at the first chance that offers.”
The doctor smiled.
“You’ll have to wait a deuce of a long time, then,” he rejoined. “That is, if these fellows take the usual precautions with their prisoners. And if you do get a chance and have the misfortune to be recaptured, you’ll wish you’re dead long before you are!”
“Cheerful optimist, aren’t you, Doc?”
“It just happens that I know,” continued Raxworthy’s companion in misfortune. “Provided these fellows think there’s a chance of obtaining ransom, they won’t treat you so badly. But if they see no likelihood of the British Government paying up, or if you try to slip through their fingers, then——”
He snapped his fingers impressively.
“Then you wouldn’t try to escape if you had a chance?”
“My dear fellow, maturity has given me discretion,” replied the doctor.
Raxworthy pondered for a few moments.
“Look here,” he exclaimed. “Supposing I made a dash for it. Would they make it the worse for you, out of spite?”
“Having lost one possible source of wealth, they proceed to destroy the other and lesser one, eh? Hardly, I think. While there’s money there’s hope, is an axiom among them.”
“Good enough,” declared the midshipman.
“Let’s hope it is,” added his companion drily. “Only just watch and see what sort of country you would have to find your way through.”
They finished their sorry repast in silence.
The midshipman was hungry—very—and that fact alone enabled him to overcome his repugnance at the fish-flavoured rice. And having finished it he still felt the pangs of hunger.
“Now,” thought Raxworthy, glancing at the night-enshrouded deck—for the junk displayed no light—“they’ve freed my arms. I can cast my ankle lashings adrift. What’s to prevent me going over the side? There are bound to be some fishing boats about. I heard oars splashing not so very long ago.”
He bent forward and commenced to tease the knots of the rope that secured his ankles.
Even in the darkness his companion realized what he was doing and sensed his intentions.
“Better not, Raxworthy!”
“Why not?”
“Sharks!”
One of the pirates replaced the two prisoners’ bonds. The opportunity had passed for the midshipman to carry out his intention.
A few minutes after the captives had been properly secured, one of the men on the poop shouted something. Instantly there was a commotion in the waist. A mob rushed aft and commenced to tail on to a rope. Raxworthy could see their outlines silhouetted against the starlit sky, and thought that they were hauling on to a sheet or a halliard.
“Yay-hai . . . yah-hai . . . yah-hai,” the pirates sang in chorus, as they heaved and hauled.
Then there was a tremendous thump on the poop. The midshipman could not see what caused it, owing to his position almost under the break of the poop. Several of the pirates, still tailing on to the rope, descended the ladder. Others in the waist also assisted in the hauling process, while the monotonous Yah-hai continued.
Foot by foot the rope came in. More men descended the poop ladder.
Then Raxworthy saw the cause for the commotion.
At the end of the rope was an enormous shark. Its captors had hauled it up over the taffrail and were dragging it amidships to dispatch it. The brute was lashing out furiously with its tail.
Rather apprehensively the midshipman wondered what would happen to him when the shark toppled over the edge of the poop. He and the doctor were unpleasantly close to the foot of the ladder.
There was a crash of broken wood. The shark, with a terrific sweep of its tail, had partly demolished the railing and part of the handrail of the ladder. The next instant the brute, weighing perhaps a ton, landed in the waist, luckily well clear of the two prisoners.
Now half a dozen electric torches—part of the booty from the Ah-Foo—threw a strong light upon the scene. Armed with knives and axes the pirates swarmed round the struggling shark.
They hacked off its tail. It still floundered. They battered its head; plunged their knives deeply into its stomach until the deck planks were slippery with gore.
When the shark was dead the pirates cut off its fins, which they esteem a special delicacy. Then the captain, with an uncanny grin, showed his captives two objects that had been removed from the creature’s stomach. One was a boot, the other a silk sunshade, the handle and wires bent but still recognizable.
“No makee swim,” he observed ominously. “Plenty big fish allee time!”
Having taken what portions they required, the men heaved the rest of the carcass overboard. There were splashes that were not accounted for by the impact of the pieces upon the water. Other sharks were fighting fiercely in their cannibalistic feast!
Raxworthy had to admit that the doctor’s warning carried considerable weight.
Shortly afterwards he fell asleep, in spite of the sultry air and the foetid stench from the unwashed decks of the pirate junk.
At frequent intervals he awoke. It was difficult to sleep with his arms bound behind his back and nothing to support his head. Every time the junk heeled, his body swayed from hip and shoulder. Yet after a considerable time, fatigue sent him into a heavy slumber.
He was awakened by two of the pirates lifting him by his shoulders and feet.
It was now dawn. The sun had risen above the horizon, and the short twilight had given place to broad daylight.
Two others were carrying his fellow-captive aft. All the crew were in a state of commotion. Many of them had armed themselves with rifles. A machine-gun had been placed on the poop, and its crew were engaged in fitting the ammunition belt. Everyone seemed to be taking more than ordinary interest in something away on the starboard beam.
This much Raxworthy noticed before he was carried aft, and then down a short ladder to a flat below the water-line. The doctor had already been unceremoniously dumped there.
“What’s the idea?” he inquired, as the midshipman flopped on the deck beside him.
Before Raxworthy could hazard an explanation a stuttering rifle-and machine-gun-fire opened from the junk.
“Hurrah!” he exclaimed. “One of our destroyers is butting in.”
“Then I hope to goodness they don’t send the old tub to the bottom. I don’t mind running risks from rifle-fire in the open, but dashed if I like the idea of being cooped up here if the junk’s sunk. It’s worse than being in a submarine.”