clack-clack of mahjongg tiles being banged onto a deck or a table and the chattering singsong. Smoke rose from cooking fires. Junks and lorchas and sampans filled the estuary. Everything—the sounds and the smells and sights—seemed normal to Struan. Except the emptiness of the square—he had presumed that the square would be populated. Now they had to cross a deserted expanse, and in the moonlight they could be seen for hundreds of yards.
The clock chimed midnight.
He waited and watched and waited.
The minutes became longer and after an eternity the chimes sounded the quarter-hour. Then the half-hour.
“Maybe the lorcha is south,” May-may said, stifling a yawn.
“Aye. We’ll wait another half an hour, then we’ll look.”
Almost at the hour he saw the two lanterns on a lorcha coming downstream. The boat was too far away for him to see the red-painted eye and he held his breath and waited. The lorcha was sailing gently but was sluggish and slow in the water. This was a favorable sign to him because the bullion would weigh many tons. After the boat passed the north end of the Settlement, it changed course and crept into the wharf. Two of the Chinese crew jumped ashore with hawsers and tied up. To his relief, another Chinese went to the lantern on the prow, blew it out and lit it again according to the prearranged signal.
Struan searched the half-darkness for peril. He sensed none. He checked the priming of his pistols and stuck them in his belt. “Follow me, quickly now!”
Silently he went to the front door and unlocked it and guided them cautiously through the garden. He opened the gate and they hastened across the square. Struan felt as though all Canton was watching them. Reaching the lorcha, he saw the red-painted eye and recognized on the poop the man who had led him to Jin-qua. He helped May-may aboard. Ah Gip leaped aboard easily.
“Wat for two cow chillo, heya? No can!” the man said.
“Your name wat can?” Struan asked.
“Wung, heya!”
“Cow chillo my. Cast off, Wung!”
Wung noticed May-may’s tiny feet and his eyes narrowed. He could not see May-may’s face, for she kept the sampan hat low over her forehead. Struan did not like the way Wung hesitated or the way he looked at May-may. “Cast off!” he said curtly, and bunched a fist. Wung rapped an order. The hawsers were cast off and the lorcha slipped away from the wharf. Struan took May-may and Ah Gip down the gangway to the lower deck. He turned aft where the main cabin would be and opened the door. Inside were five Chinese. He motioned them out. Reluctantly they got up and left, looking May-may up and down. They, too, noticed her feet.
The cabin was tiny with four bunks and a crude table and benches. It smelled of hemp and rotting fish. Wung was standing at the door of the cabin, scrutinizing May-may.
“Wat for cow chillo? No can.”
Struan paid no attention to him. “May-may—you locka dorra, heya? Only open dorra my knock, savvy?”
“Savvy, Mass’er.”
Struan went to the door and beckoned Wung outside. He heard the bolt lock behind them, then he said, “Go hold!”
Wung took him into the hold. The forty crates were stacked in two neat rows against the sides of the ship, with a wide passageway between them.
“Wat in box, heya?” Struan asked.
Wung seemed perplexed. “Wat for you saya, heya? All same Mass’er Jin-qua say.”
“How muchee men knowa?”
“My only! All knowa, ayee, yah!” Wung said, drawing his finger across his throat.
Struan grunted. “Guard dorra.” He selected a crate at random and opened it with a crowbar. He stared down at the bullion, then lifted one of the silver bricks from the top layer. He sensed Wung’s tension and it heightened his own. He replaced the brick and the top of the crate.
“Wat for cow chillo, heya?” Wung said.
“Cow chillo my. Finish.” Struan made sure the lid was tight again.
Wung stuck his thumbs in the belt of his ragged pants. “Chow? Can?”
“Can.”
Struan went on deck and checked the rigging and the sails. A four-pound cannon was in the bow and another in the stern. He made sure that both were loaded and primed, and that the powder keg was full and the powder dry. Grape and shot were ready at hand. He ordered Wung to assemble the crew and picked up a belaying pin. There were eight men aboard.
“You saya,” he said to Wung, “all knives, all boom-boom, on deck plenty quick-quick.”
“Ayee yah, no can,” Wung protested. “Plenty pirate in river. Plenty—”
Struan’s fist caught him in the throat and slammed him against the gunnel. The crew chattered angrily and prepared to rush Struan, but the raised belaying pin discouraged them.
“All knives, all boom-boom on deck, plenty quick,” Struan repeated, his voice steely.
Wung hauled himself up weakly and muttered something in Cantonese. After an ominous silence he threw his knife on the deck, and, grudgingly, the others followed suit. Struan told him to gather up the knives and tie them in a piece of sacking that was on the deck. Next he made the crew turn around and he began to search them. He found a small pistol on the third man, and with the butt end smashed the man across the side of the head. Four more knives clattered to the deck from other men, and out of the corner of his eye Struan saw Wung drop a small fighting hatchet overboard.
After he had searched the men, he ordered them to stay on deck and taking the weapons with him, he carefully searched the rest of the ship. There was no one concealed belowdecks. He found a cache of four muskets, six swords, four bows and arrows and three fighting irons, behind some crates, and carried them into the cabin.
“Heya, May-may, youa hear what topside can?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she said, as softly. “You say we can talk English in front of Ah Gip safely. You dinna want to now?”
“I forgot. Habit. Nay, lass, it’s all right.”
“Why hit Wung? He’s Jin-qua’s trusted, no?”
“The cargo’s the lodestone of this voyage.”
“ ‘Lodestone’?”
“Magnet. Compass needle.”
“Oh, I understand.” May-may sat on the bunk, her nostrils quivering from the stench of rotting fish. “I be very sick if I stay here. Can I be on deck?”
“Wait till we’re clear of Canton. You’re safer here. Much safer.”
“How long before we meet
China Cloud?”
“A little after first light—if Wolfgang makes no mistake on the rendezvous.”
“Is that possible?”
“With this cargo, anything’s possible.” Struan picked up one of the muskets. “Do you know how to use this?”
“Wat for should I shoot gunses? Me, I am a civilizationed fright-filled old woman—of great beauty I agree, but na gunses.”
He showed her. “If anyone but me comes into the cabin, kill him.” He went back on deck, carrying another musket. The lorcha was in mid-channel now, under a soaring moon, ponderous and low in the water and making about four knots. They were still passing the suburbs of Canton, and both sides of the river were thickly lined with floating villages. From time to time they passed boats and sampans and junks beating upstream. The river here was half a mile wide, and there were boats of all sizes ahead and astern going downstream.