Under the Chinese Dragon Part 15

'Up the ladder, _mon cher_,' whispered the Frenchman. 'I will climb, and you after me. I will cast the light upon them, and at once descend. You can cover me with your pistol; but first to see if the deck is clear.'

They stood still for some seconds, staring into the gloom. But already the light was coming, so that they could see further than at the beginning of the attack. Without a doubt the deck was unoccupied, save by the bodies of those who had fallen. Alphonse nudged David at once, and slid across to the ladder that mounted to the roof of the cabin right at the side of the ship. In a minute both were high enough, then Alphonse coolly turned the slide and threw a broad beam on the enemy.

The roof was packed with them. A dozen men, at least, armed with native adzes, were hacking at the deck in as many different places. The Frenchman, undismayed by the angry shouts which greeted his appearance, coolly cast the beam on either side, and only desisted when one of the enemy, a huge fellow with muscular limbs, leaped forward, swinging his adze.

'Monsieur, I think it rests with you,' he said quickly, sliding to one side to allow David to clamber a little higher. 'Monsieur shoots well.

He has nerve, eh? That fine fellow will trouble us no longer.'

There was no trace of excitement about him, even when David with a well-directed shot brought the ruffian crashing to the deck. Alphonse merely chuckled, then squeezed himself still more to one side, politely making more room for our hero.

'We will return now if monsieur is ready,' he said. '_Merci_, I will follow.'

He came slowly down the ladder after David, and entered the cabin again as unconcerned as if he had merely been out to look at the weather. As for our hero, the recent exploit concerned him far less than did the report he brought to the Professor.

'Two dozen of them, working like demons to break through into the cabin,' he said. 'I can't see how we can prevent them. We can shoot through one or more of the gaps, but when there are so many we shall not be able to watch them.'

The Professor took a long pull at his cigar. David and d.i.c.k saw the end of the weed redden in the darkness, while the smoke he blew from his lips was visible in the reflected light. Then Alphonse opened just a crevice of the lamp, thus allowing them to see one another. Even now the features of the leader of the expedition were anything but mournful. The jaw was, if anything, a little squarer. The Professor wore the appearance of a man who is confident, but who at the same time has his back against a wall.

'Call Hung,' he commanded, and when that worthy appeared, 'Run along beyond the barricade,' he urged him. 'Take Hu Ty with you. Report if men are in the bows, and if so, how many. Do not appear on deck. Send the other two to me.'

They came clambering up from the dark alley-way a moment later, Jong still grinning, the more so when he listened to the racket taking place overhead, while Lo Fing kow-towed before his master.

'We are here, Excellency,' he said. 'Your orders?'

'Take everything you see that is of value. You know what the boxes contain; carry them down below at once. Quickly! There is no time to lose. d.i.c.k, David, Alphonse, put your backs into the work.'

'Going to make a stand down below,' thought our hero. 'The only move we can make. I wonder if we could get right forward.'

Like the others, he seized upon the boxes that contained all their possessions, and which the Professor, with a knowledge of Chinese cupidity and cunning, had insisted should be stacked in the cabin.

Then, when after some three minutes every bale and box was below, he ventured to broach his ideas to the Professor.

'Thought of it myself,' came the short answer. 'Go along with Hung. He's been back to say that the coast is clear. Report as soon as possible if there is a place where we can make a stand. I don't care for this alley-way. Too much like rats in a trap. Quick with it, David.'

In that instant, if never before, David realised that here was indeed a leader; for the Professor was not in the smallest degree flurried. His cheroot still glimmered redly. He drew in the smoke and blew out huge billows. But all the while he was listening to the sounds above, calculating the chances of his party, thinking how best to act so as to secure their safety.

'Why not?' he suddenly exclaimed aloud. 'It's been done before. Why not again?'

'Pardon, monsieur,' ventured Alphonse, standing beside his master, as if to guard him. 'You spoke.'

'Of something that occurred to me. All in good time, my friend. What do you think of the situation?'

The Frenchman threw up his eyes and shrugged his shoulders in a manner sufficiently expressive. 'Monsieur knows better than I,' he said. 'I shall still live to cook and valet for monsieur.'

'Then you shall if I can contrive it. Ah, there is David. Well?' asked the leader of the party.

'Not a soul forward. It's lighter by a long way,' reported our hero. 'I sneaked on deck, and counted forty-three Chinese over our heads. They are hacking away like madmen.'

'Then we will leave them to it. In five minutes at least they will have broken through into the cabin. Get below and shoulder a box, David. We are following.'

The Professor marshalled his little force into the alley-way, and stepped coolly down the ladder after them. Not one word did he utter to hint what were his intentions. All that his supporters knew was that they were retreating from a position that was no longer tenable. But as to the future--well, Alphonse's shrug gave them little indication.

CHAPTER IX

A Game of Long Bowls

'Excellency, we have come to the end of the pa.s.sage; we can go no further,' declared Hung, some two minutes after the Professor and his party had set out down the alley-way. 'A ladder leads to the deck above, while there are sleeping places for the crew on either side. Is it here that you will make a stand?'

'Halt! Put your loads on the floor and wait. Come with me, David.'

The leader of the expedition, still puffing heavily at his cigar, and showing an almost unruffled countenance in the lamp-light, stepped casually to the foot of the ladder and began to ascend to the deck of the native craft which he had chartered at Shanghai for the accommodation of his staff, and upon which such a treacherous and unforeseen attack had been made. But if he were the essence of coolness, and declined to hurry, he was by no means a fool, as he showed very plainly in the course of a minute. For while the Professor refused to be frightened and scared out of his wits, he declined at the same time to throw away the lives of his party for the want of necessary caution.

'Don't come higher,' he whispered to David. 'I'll beckon if I want you.

Ah, it is still too dark for those ruffians to see us from the p.o.o.p where they are at work. Come up, lad, and look about you.'

He tossed his cigar over the side, and David heard the hiss of the water as it met the burning weed. A moment later he was beside the Professor.

'Well?' demanded the latter, when some seconds had elapsed. 'What do you say to the situation? Critical I think, eh? Very critical. By the row those demons are making they have broken through into our cabin in more places than one. In a few minutes they will have a leader, and then there will be a rush. We certainly couldn't have stemmed it; they would have killed us with the greatest ease; but where shall the next stand be made?'

Where indeed? David cast his eyes in every direction, piercing the gloom as far as possible. The bare decks gave no promise of successful defence. To retreat to the wide cabin below, which served as the crew's quarters, was but to repeat a former experiment. There remained the rigging and the alley-way, and neither was very enticing. He shrugged his shoulders, as if he had caught the habit from Alphonse, and then turned to his employer.

'We can put up a fight anywhere almost,' he said. 'Out here we should soon be rushed and knocked down. In the alley-way we could hold them for hours. But it couldn't go on for ever; there are too many of them. My idea was calmly to board the other ship and push her off. That would give us a breathing spell. We could then discuss matters again and consider our plans from a different standpoint.'

The Professor chuckled loudly; unconsciously he reached in an inner pocket for his cigar case, and extracting a weed, bit the end off. David even heard the sharp snap of his teeth coming together. 'Boy,' suddenly exclaimed the leader, 'they say that great minds think alike; then yours and mine are great indeed, for the plan you have suggested is mine also.

That is why we carried our baggage all along the alley-way. Summon the others on deck. We go aboard the stranger and merely change our quarters; but bid them be silent, for even now those fiends might hear something to rouse their suspicion.'

However, it was not a likely contingency, for as David went to the hatchway to call to those below fiendish yells rose from the p.o.o.p of the vessel. Then some ponderous weapon was fired, the flame for a moment allowing the Professor to catch a sight of the crowd on the roof of the cabin. A second later they were swallowed up in the gloom, though their shrieks and shouts still told of their presence.

'All on deck, sir,' reported David in his most official manner.

'Then follow to the other ship. Not a sound, friends; not a sound. Once aboard David and d.i.c.k run to find a suitable place which we can defend; Hung and his comrades set their boxes down and prepare to stop a rush.

Alphonse and I cut the hawsers which hold the two ships and push them apart. Forward!'

In one corner of his mouth the unlighted weed was held, and all unconscious of the fact that he had not set flame to it, the Professor sucked hard at the weed, exclaiming as he found it did not draw. Then, as if habit were too strong for him, or perhaps because he realised that none were likely to see him in that gloom, he stepped back to the hatchway, descended a few rungs of the ladder, and opening his lantern sucked at the flame. Then he followed the others, and was soon at the side of the vessel. Casting his eyes upward, he could see the rigging of the other ship against the stars, while a dull creaking, and an occasional b.u.mp showed that the two ships were riding close together.

'But with rope fenders between them,' he told himself, 'else in this swell they'd grind holes in one another. Ah, the rascals threw planks across from rail to rail, which was most thoughtful of them.'

With half his attention given to the enemy, and the other half to his own following, he helped to hand the various bales and boxes across the planks connecting the two ships. Then he crossed over himself, and searched for the ropes it was necessary to sever. Here a sudden difficulty presented itself. One of the connecting links was a stout chain, which the swell and the drift of the vessels had pulled so taught that there was no unloosening it.

'We shall have to cut it,' cried the Professor. 'Alphonse, an axe, quick, those rascals are dropping into our cabin.'

But to call for such an article when just arrived on a strange ship is one thing; to find it an altogether different matter. Neither Alphonse nor Hung, nor any of the Chinese could hit upon one. And while they searched the uproar made by the enemy, which had almost ceased for a time, became of a sudden even more deafening.

'Discovered our absence; awfully bothered,' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Professor.

'But they won't be long in discovering our ruse. Can no one find an axe?

David, the scheme fails if we do not hit upon one within the minute.'