The Penang Pirate | Page 7

and by, when the serang and his gang had gone forward again, to
unbit the cable chain and cat and fish the anchor, Jack went up on the
poop to the captain.
"Beg your pardon, Cap'en Morton," he said, "but I think that Malay
chap is up to something; can I speak to you privately?"
"Oh, never mind Mr Meredith," said the captain; "we are all friends
here; speak out."
"Well, you know, sir," said Jack, diffidently--he didn't like spinning a
yarn, as he called it, before strangers--"that I understand a little Chinese;
and I caught something of what the serang was saying to those two
beggars in the boat."
"Did you?" said the captain and Mr Meredith, the passenger, almost
together, eagerly. "What was it? what did the rascal say?"
"You may well say rascal, sir," said Jack. "For though I did not hear all
their conversation, from what I gathered I think they're up to some

mischief. I first heard the chap in the boat say, `And how about the
passengers?' or something like that as far as I could make out; and the
serang said, `There's only one come on the ship.'"
The captain nudged Mr Meredith here, and the first mate, and all three
chuckled.
"And then the man in the boat said, `You are certain there are not more
aboard?' And the serang answered, `No, only that one
passenger'--`strange man,' he called him--`and twelve men besides the
boy officer,'--I suppose meaning me, sir. And then the man in the boat,
who seemed to have some authority over the serang, said, `In about ten
days, if the wind is good or fair; and don't be in a hurry, but wait for the
signal!' and then the Malay chap turned and saw me, and the boat
shoved off."
"Very good, Harper," said the captain; "we'll keep an eye on him, never
fear;" and then, as Jack went off again to his post he turned to Mr
Meredith: "I confess that I was wrong, and you and the admiral right,
sir!" he said. "And now we must contrive to outwit these yellow devils,
and as they're half-Chinese and ought to know, show them how to catch
a Tartar!"
"Ay," said Mr Meredith, laughing, "we'll give them a lesson they'll
never forget, too, while we're about it! But, captain, we have plenty of
time before us--ten days or more, just as I calculated; and all we have to
do now is to look out sharp for squalls in the meantime."
"Right, sir," said Captain Morton, "we'll all have to look out sharp, for
they're treacherous rascals at the best, and these seem to be the worst!
Keep your weather eye open, Scuppers, and give Sprott a hint--
although not a word, mind you, to the men yet, with the exception of
Bill Martens, who can be trusted to bide his time, as he knows already
as much as ourselves. As to little Jack Harper, he's a 'cute boy, and is
not likely to forget what he has heard." And there the conversation
ended and the subject dropped.
All that day the Hankow Lin was working her way down the river from

Canton, which lies some eighty miles from its mouth; and at nightfall
the ship again anchored, the navigation being somewhat intricate and
the breeze dying away; but next morning it was up anchor and away
again with everything hoisted that could draw and the wind right astern,
the vessel making such good progress through the water that long
before mid-day she had passed through the Bocca Tigris, or "tiger's
mouth" passage, and was out in the open ocean.
The nor'-east monsoon, which blows in the China seas as regularly as
clockwork from October to April, and is the great trade-wind of the tea-
ships, had nearly blown out its course; but still, for a time it was all in
the Hankow Lin's favour, and she went through the water at a fine rate.
Although she was pretty well laden, and was rather deep for a vessel of
her size, she walked along as if, as the sailors said, the girls at home
had got hold of the tow-rope; and when the log was hove at noon she
was going twelve knots with all sail set--not a bad pace that for a trader;
but, in the old days, before steam transformed the trade through the Red
Sea, these tea-ships were built for speed as well as freight room.
Sundown came, and the great orb of day set in a crescent of ruby light,
making the sea like a gorgeous pantomime sea of molten gold as far as
the eye could reach; and still the wind held up fair and strong, and the
vessel careered over the expanse of ocean, that looked