Blue Jackets Part 86

But our danger was not from the water but the sharp fire which the Chinese kept up now, fortunately without killing any of us. Then the boat glided between us and the junk, ready hands were outstretched from the side, and I was hauled in by Tom Jecks, who then reached over and grasped Ching by the pigtail.

"No, no touchee tow-chang!" roared the poor fellow.

"All right; then both hands and in with you."

"Lay hold of the sheet, Jecks!" cried Mr Brooke, who sprang over the thwart to the tiller, rammed it down, and the sail began to fill, but only slowly, for the towering junk acted as a lee, and all the time the men yelled, pelted, and fired at us.

"Look out, my lads; give it to them now. Make fast the sheet, Jecks, and get your rifle. Ten pounds to the man who brings down the captain!"

roared Mr Brooke. "Here, Herrick, my gun!" he cried; and, handing it to him, I seized mine, thrust in two wet cartridges with my wet fingers, and, doubting whether they would go off, I took aim at a man on the p.o.o.p, who was holding a pot to which another was applying a light.

The next minute the pot was in a blaze, and the man raised it above his head to hurl it right upon us, but it dropped straight down into the sea close to the junk, and the man staggered away with his hands to his face, into which he must have received a good deal of the charge of duck-shot with which my piece was charged.

Excited by my success, I fired the second barrel at a man who was leaning over the bulwarks, taking aim at us with his great clumsy matchlock, and his shot did not hit any one, for the man dropped his piece overboard and shrank away.

As I charged again, I could hear and see that our lads were firing away as rapidly as they could up at the crowded bulwarks, while Tom Jecks was making his piece bear upon the deck of the high p.o.o.p whenever he could get a shot at the captain; and now, too, Mr Brooke was firing off his small-shot cartridges as rapidly as possible, the salt water not having penetrated the well-wadded powder enclosed in the bra.s.s cases.

By this time we were fifty yards away from the junk, and gliding more rapidly through the water, which was splashed up about us and the boat hit again and again with a sharp rap by the slugs from the Chinamen's matchlocks.

The men were returning the fire with good effect as we more than once saw, and twice over one of the wretches who sought to hurl a blazing pot of fire was brought down.

"They can't hurt us now," I thought, as I ceased firing, knowing that my small-shot would be useless at the distance we now were, when I saw a spark of light moving on the p.o.o.p, and then sat paralysed by horror as I grasped what was going to take place. It was only a moment or two before there was a great flash and a roar, with a puff of sunset-reddened smoke, hiding the p.o.o.p of the junk; for they had depressed a big swivel gun to make it bear upon us, and then fired, sending quite a storm of shot, stones, and broken pieces of iron crashing through the roof of our little cabin, and tearing a great hole in our sail.

"That's done it!" shouted Tom Jecks, giving the stock of his rifle a heavy slap.

"You've hit him?" cried Mr Brooke.

"Yes, sir; I caught him as he stood by watching the cannon fired."

"Yes, that's right," cried Mr Brooke, shading his eyes and gazing hard at the scene on the high p.o.o.p, where, in the last rays of the setting sun, we could see men holding up their captain, who was distinctive from his gay attire and lacquered hat, which now hung forward as the scoundrel's head drooped upon his breast.

"Cease firing!" said Mr Brooke, for we were a hundred yards away now, and rapidly increasing the distance. "We can do no more good. Thank you, Jecks. Now then, who is hurt?"

There was no reply.

"What, no one?" cried Mr Brooke.

"Yes, sir: why don't you speak out, Tom Jecks? You got it, didn't you?"

"Well, so did you; but I arn't going to growl."

"More arn't I, messmate. It's nothing much, sir."

"Let me see," said Mr Brooke, as we sailed steadily away, while the junk still remained stationary; and, after a rapid examination, he plugged and bound a wound in the man's shoulder, and performed a similar operation upon Tom Jeck's hind-leg, as he called it, a bullet or slug having gone right through the calf.

I could not help admiring the calm stolidity with which the two men bore what must have been a painful operation, for neither flinched, but sat in turn gazing at his messmate, as much as to say, "That's the way to take it, my lad; look at me."

This done, Mr Brooke turned his attention to the wound received by the boat, where the charge from the swivel gun had gone crashing through the top of the cabin and out at the side. It was a gaping wound in the slight planking of the boat, but the shot had torn their way out some distance above the water-line, so that unless very rough weather came on there was no danger, and we had other and more serious business now to take up our attention.

For Ching pointed out to us a certain amount of bustle on board the junk, which was explained by a puff of smoke and a roar, as simultaneously the water was ploughed up close to our stern.

"Not clever at their gun drill," said Mr Brooke coolly, as he took the helm himself now, and sent the boat dancing along over the waves, so as to keep her endwise to the junk, and present a smaller object for the pirate's aim.

"That's bad management under some circ.u.mstances, Herrick," he said, smiling. "It's giving an enemy the chance of raking us from stern to stem, but I don't believe they can hit us.--I thought not."

He said this smiling, as the water was churned up again by another shot, but several yards away upon our right.

Another shot and another followed without result, and by this time we were getting well out of range of the swivel gun, a poor, roughly-made piece, and our distance was being rapidly increased.

"Going away!" said Ching, as we saw the great mat-sails of the junk fill.

"Or to come in chase--which?" said Mr Brooke quietly. "It does not matter," he added; "we shall soon have darkness again, and I think we shall be too nimble for them then."

"Beg pardon, sir," said Tom Jecks.

"Yes, what is it? Your wound painful?"

"Tidy, sir; but that warn't it. I was only going to say, look yonder."

He pointed right away east, and, as we followed his finger with our eyes, they lit upon a sight which would have even made me, inexperienced as I was, think it was time to seek the shelter of some port. And that something unusual was going to happen, I knew directly from Mr Brooke's way of standing up to shelter his eyes, and then, after gazing for some time in one direction, he turned in that of the great Chinese port we had so lately left.

CHAPTER FORTY.

ANOTHER ENEMY.

For as I looked towards the horizon away to the east, a curious lurid glow spread upward half-way to the zenith, and for the moment I thought that in a short time we should see the full-moon come slowly up out of the sea. But a few moments' reflection told me that we were long past the full-moon time, and that it would be the last quarter late on in the night. The sea, too, began to wear a singular aspect, and great frothy clouds were gathering rapidly in the south. And even as I looked there was a peculiar moaning sigh, as if a great wind were pa.s.sing over us at a great height, though the sea was only just pleasantly rippled, and a gentle breeze was sweeping us rapidly along and away from the great junk, which now seemed hazy and distant, while those we had watched so long were quite out of sight.

"Feel cold?" said Mr Brooke quietly. "I ought to have told you to take off and wring out your clothes."

"Cold, sir!" I said wonderingly. "I hadn't thought about it; I was so excited."

"Yes; we had a narrow escape, my lad. It is a lesson in being careful with these cunning, treacherous wretches. You made sure it was a trader, Ching?"

"Ching neve' quite su'e--only think so," was the reply, accompanied by a peculiar questioning look, and followed by a glance over his right shoulder at the sky.

"No, I suppose not. I ought to have been more careful. They threw something down at the boat as soon as we had mounted: did they not, Jecks?"

"Yes, sir; I see it coming. Great pieces of ballast iron, as it took two on 'em to heave up over the bulwarks. I just had time to give the boat a shove with the hitcher when down it come. Gone through the bottom like paper, if I hadn't. But beg pardon, sir, arn't we going to have a storm?"

"Yes," said Mr Brooke quietly; "I am running for the river, if I can make it. If not, for that creek we were in last night. Take the tiller, Mr Herrick," he said, and he went forward.

"Going blow wind velly high. Gleat wave and knock houses down," said Ching uneasily.

"Yes, my lad; we're going to have what the Jay-pans calls a tyc.o.o.n."

"No, no, Tom Jecks," I said, smiling.

"You may laugh, sir, but that's so. I've sailed in these here waters afore and been in one. Had to race afore it with bare poles and holding on to the belaying-pins. Tyc.o.o.ns they call 'em, don't they, Mr Ching?"