Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Fifteen.Mutterings of War.The single, and scarcely original, exclamation of “Oh!” was all that Captain Drake appeared to be capable of uttering for the moment. His eyes continued to bulge from their sockets, and he looked like a suddenly-awakened somnambulist. He was trying to realise the meaning of what Frobisher had just told him, and was finding it altogether too much for him.At last Frobisher said, with a laugh: “Well, skipper, the money’s here, sure enough; but so are we, and it remains to be seen whether or not we can get out.”“We’ll get out all right, don’t you trouble,” returned Drake confidently; “but”—unable as yet to detach his mind from the subject of his suddenly-acquired fortune—“just now you mentioned the name of the gentleman who collected all this stuff—Jenkins Can, I think you said he was called. Who was he, and how did he come to pouch such a pile of loot? Was he one of those old buccaneers, like Morgan and Kidd, that we read about?”“Well,” replied Frobisher, “he was not exactly a buccaneer, for he was not a sailor, but a landsman; and he operated in a much larger way than either Morgan or Kidd. As a matter of fact he was a Tartar chief in his young days, many centuries ago, who gradually drilled and armed his own tribe, then other tribes, and still others, until he came, in course of time, to have an enormous army under him. The idea then occurred to him to make use of this vast army; and he determined upon no less a task than that of conquering Asia. He did it, too; there’s hardly a square mile of this continent that has not echoed to the tread of his troops. Everywhere he went he was victorious. He took and sacked cities, destroyed them, and sowed the ruins with salt; and it is said that, to this day, no grass will grow where Genghiz Khan’s armies trod. Naturally, in the course of time, he accumulated a vast booty from the cities he captured, and it finally became too large and cumbersome for him to carry about with him, so he determined to alter his tactics for once, and, instead of destroying, to build a city for himself where he could bury his hoard, and which he could make his head-quarters.“It is well known that he actually did this—various records state it, but those records do not say exactly where. The city, it is said, was founded somewhere in northern China—on the banks of a mighty river, is the wording, I believe; but there are several rivers in China answering that description, so the place might be almost anywhere. Then, years afterward, this man determined to conquer Japan. He fitted out a great armada and sailed for Nippon; but, as in the case of the famous Spanish Armada, a storm arose, and the entire fleet was wrecked. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese lost their lives, and Japan was saved. From that time onward, Genghiz Khan and the records relating to his treasure disappeared; and the city he founded, as well as the treasure, gradually passed into legend, the story being handed down from father to son by word of mouth. The man himself is supposed to have been cast ashore in Japan, where he adopted the dress and customs of the Japanese, in course of time becoming one of themselves, and winning great renown under another name—which I forget for the moment. But antiquarians insist that the name he assumed was but the Japanese rendering of his own former one of Genghiz Khan.“At any rate, he never returned to China to recover his treasure; and legend has it that it still remained where it had been originally hidden. From time to time, expeditions have been formed for the purpose of searching for this legendary deserted city; but it has remained for us, Drake, to discover it, and to secure Genghiz Khan’s millions. This must be the town, this must be the treasure; for not otherwise can such an enormous hoard be accounted for. Nobody but the conqueror of Asia could ever have amassed so much.”“That’s very interesting, Mr Frobisher,” said Drake, who had been listening intently; “and it’s a very comforting thought that all this belongs to us, if we can only get out. I suppose, in any case, we had better fill our pockets, lest we should not be able to get back here?”“It would not be at all a bad idea, skipper,” returned Frobisher; and the two men slipped a few handfuls of the jewels into their pockets, as coolly as though they had been so many pebbles instead of gems worth several thousands of pounds.“And now,” said Frobisher, “we had better turn our attention to getting out of this. I shall not feel comfortable until I have satisfied myself that this place is not going to prove a living tomb for us.”They closed the lids of all the chests, and passed through what Frobisher called “the door-way of swords”, carefully closing the door behind them by means of a stick, lest the closing should again set the swords in motion. But it did not; the mechanism was evidently so arranged as only to operate upon the opening of the door.“I do not think we need fear burglars here,” said Drake with a smile, as the door clanged shut.The two men then decided to explore the remainder of the corridors, for unless an exit from one of them could be found there was little doubt that the treasure would prove as useless to them as it had been to Genghiz Khan himself.The first passage they explored ended in a blank wall, as the three others had done; but in the next, to their great relief, they found another passage branching away to the left. This they followed for some distance, until they reached a spot where it branched into two. As there was no knowing which, if either, was the right one, they took the one on the left, as the previous opening had been on the left of the corridor, and followed it for a considerable distance. But they were doomed to disappointment; the corridor led nowhere. It simply came to what seemed to be a dead end, like the others. Frobisher felt the drops of sweat forming on his forehead, for it was beginning to look remarkably as though there was but one entrance to the vault—that through which they had come—and that all these other passages were either natural, or had been cut simply with the idea of mystifying and misleading possible intruders.“Never say die” was, however, Frobisher’s motto, and Drake’s too, for that matter, so they tried back and entered the right-hand branch. But no better success attended them here, this ending in a blank wall also. There was now only one corridor untried, and with sinking hearts they proceeded to explore it.No exit of any sort rewarded them here either, and hardly daring to look each other in the face, from fear of what they might see there, they returned to the main chamber, into which Drake had fallen headlong in the first instance. Here they could still hear the distant shouts and trampling of the pirates, who were evidently moving about in the chamber directly overhead, continuing the search for their prey; but even the thought that they were safe from those barbarous savages was now hardly sufficient to cheer them. It would have been almost better to have met death in the open, fighting, than to be compelled to watch his slow approach in this dismal place, far below the level of the ground.Unable to remain still, Frobisher again most carefully examined the inside of the secret door in search of a hidden spring, but no sign of it could he discover. It seemed evident that, unless the door were actually propped open by the person entering the vault, there was no getting back by that way; and Frobisher could not help thinking that surely some other exit must have been provided. The people accustomed to using the vault could not be expected always to remember to prop the door open when they entered; and it did not seem reasonable to suppose that the place had been so constructed that a mere lapse of memory would be tantamount to a person signing his own death-warrant. An emergency exit must have been made for use in case the main door became closed accidentally or otherwise; but the question was, where was it situated?Drake suggested that there must undoubtedly be an opening somewhere, because the air in the vault was comparatively pure and fresh; at least it had not the dead, stale, stuffy smell of air confined in a hermetically-sealed chamber. But Frobisher pointed out that the door by which they had entered, although an excellent fit, did not butt up against the jambs so closely as to exclude the air altogether; yet he acknowledged that the air in the vault certainly seemed sweeter than might have been expected, had the main door been the only channel through which it could filter in.Under the stimulus of the new glimmer of hope thus caught, every corridor was once more explored, even more closely than before, but with no other result than that Frobisher completely satisfied himself that there was most certainly no exit from any of the passages. Even a concealed door, opened by a spring, could hardly have evaded the close scrutiny of the two men; and it became more and more apparent that they had been caught in a trap from which there was no escape. Both were feeling famished for want of food, and were parched with thirst; and Frobisher could not help wondering how long the agony of death from starvation and thirst would be prolonged before blessed unconsciousness came to their relief.Suddenly—they had both been sitting dejectedly on the floor—Frobisher jumped to his feet.“Look here, Drake,” he exclaimed, “there is just one place that we never thought of searching, and that’s the treasure chamber itself. We were too deeply interested in the valuables we found to think of looking for an exit in there. Who knows?—the very thing we are hunting for may be in there all the time.”The two men fairly raced down the passage leading to the chamber, opened the latch, with all due caution, and re-entered the vault. At first sight there appeared to be no semblance of a second door, and their hopes dropped to zero once more. Then Drake proposed that, as a last chance, they should remove the chests to the centre of the room and see whether, possibly, there might be a door concealed behind any of them. They set to work feverishly, and in doing so spilled the jewels and coins in heaps on the floor. But what did that matter? Unless they found a way of escape from their prison, jewels and coin would be of far less value to them than a loaf of bread and a jar of water.Then, at the very end, when their hopes were practically extinguished, the last chests removed disclosed a little oaken door set into the wall, not more than four feet high by three feet broad. Drake was about to open it impulsively when Frobisher restrained him. He did not want either of them to be killed on the very threshold of success by some other hidden and fiendishly ingenious piece of mechanism. But when cautiously opened with the aid of one of the sticks, nothing happened in this instance, and they crawled safely through into another passage, being careful to close the door behind them.This passage looked a good deal more promising, there being no less than four other corridors branching off it at right angles, each, curiously enough, leading away to the left. But they determined to go straight ahead in the first instance, exploring the corridors afterwards, if not successful in their present direction. They traversed so long a distance in a perfectly straight line, the ground rising gently all the way, that they soon became convinced that they were at last on the right track, as the passage must, some distance back, have passed from under the foundations of the palace itself, and be leading, undoubtedly, to some exit at a considerable distance from the building. It seemed probable that it might have been constructed with a view to providing a means of escape, should the palace ever be attacked and stormed.That they were correct in their surmise was proved shortly afterward when, a little distance ahead, Frobisher caught sight of a pin-hole of light. This presently resolved itself into sunlight shining through the keyhole of another door; and they realised that, since it was now broad daylight, they must have spent several hours in Genghiz Khan’s treasure-house. The door did not open with a handle, as the others had done, and there was no key hanging handily on the wall, as there had been when Frobisher escaped out of the pirate fortress; so that, after all, there was still a rather formidable obstacle to be overcome before they could actually stand in the blessed light of day again.“We must not let this stop us, Drake,” exclaimed Frobisher; “though I don’t yet quite see what we are to do. If we had a big stone we could burst the lock off, or out; but there isn’t so much as a pebble to be seen anywhere about.”“How far are we away from the palace, do you think?” asked Drake. “If we are out of earshot of the pirates, I can easily manage it.”“A good quarter of a mile, I should say,” replied Frobisher. “You could fire a rifle in here and they would never hear it.”“I mean to do something like that,” returned the other. He produced his revolver, the muzzle of which he thrust against the keyhole, and pulled the trigger, turning his face aside at the same time.The explosion in that confined space sounded like the roar of a twelve-inch gun, and dust and splinters flew in clouds; but when the air cleared the lock was gone, and in its place a ragged hole appeared, through which a clenched fist could easily be thrust. One or two strong pulls, both together, while gripping the edges of the hole, sufficed to loosen the whole affair, and presently, with a rattle of falling pieces of broken iron and springs, the door grated open, and they once more beheld the blessed light of day.On stepping outside, they found themselves in the midst of a thick clump of bushes and vegetation which completely concealed the door from outside, and which had evidently not been disturbed for centuries, so thick and matted was the growth. Through this they pushed and broke their way, coming out a few moments later into what was evidently the remains of a once-spacious and magnificent garden. There were still traceable the outlines of old walks and lawns; ruined fountains and marble basins for gold-fish were scattered about; and there were even the remains of marble seats and couches whereon the warriors of Genghiz Khan’s retinue had been wont to take their ease during their all-too-brief respites from fighting. Sundials, beautifully modelled in bronze, and statues, in bronze, copper, marble, and in some cases even solid silver, were to be found in many of the corners. A few were still on their pedestals, but most of them lay broken on the ground, though all gave evidence of the high level to which Chinese art had advanced, even in those far-off days.A quarter of a mile away was to be seen the palace the pair had recently vacated, and, peering cautiously from behind a screen of brushwood, they were able to make out the figures of some of the pirates, still apparently searching industriously; while the smoke of a fire, a little distance away, showed that they had by no means given up the pursuit, but were cooking a meal preparatory to instituting a fresh search of the palace precincts. They had not yet, apparently, thought of looking in the gardens.“Think we dare risk it?” enquired Drake, voicing the idea uppermost in both their minds, and pointing toward the groups of unconscious pirates.“Yes,” replied Frobisher. “They seem to be pretty fully occupied with their own concerns just now, and are evidently under the impression that we are still hiding somewhere in the building, so I think we could not hope for a better opportunity. They must, without fail, eventually discover that we are nowhere in the building, so we had better get away before they take it into their heads to start searching in this direction. I expect both groups have joined forces by this time, to participate in that meal they are preparing, so we should be able to get clear of the town without being seen.”This point settled, the pair made their way cautiously out of the gardens, and soon gained the streets, which they traversed slowly, to save themselves as much as possible in case the pursuit should again be taken up. And in about half an hour, during which they had perceived no cause for alarm, they realised, by the gradual thinning of the houses, that they were approaching the outskirts of the city on its eastern side.They were proceeding carefully, conversing, and noting the interesting relics of a bygone civilisation, when, without a word, Drake suddenly seized his companion’s arm and hastily dragged him behind a convenient wall. Frobisher, too much astonished for words, could only look round, wonderingly, imagining that the pirates were after them again; and as he did so, he perceived the cause of the skipper’s alarm.The danger was not behind, but in front. The pirates had proved to be wider awake than either of the Englishmen had anticipated, and had posted a sentry at the eastern gate. Fortunately for them, the man happened to be looking in another direction at the moment when they turned the corner, or discovery would have been inevitable. As it was, the question arose—how was this fresh obstacle to be overcome? They might possibly avoid the man by making a long détour to some other gate, but this plan appealed to neither of them, for even should they succeed in escaping by some other outlet, the ground outside the walls was so bare that the man must inevitably see them. The alarm would be raised, when of course the pursuit would at once be resumed, and their capture become certain.A few words between the two Englishmen sufficed to show that the same plan—the only practicable one—had occurred to both; and, avoiding the main street, they made their way through side lanes and back alleys until they emerged at a spot only a few yards distant from the unsuspecting sentinel. Then, watching through a convenient cranny until his back was turned, they ran swiftly forward and concealed themselves behind a low stone wall which the man was passing and repassing on his beat.The next time he passed that wall the sentry experienced the unpleasant sensation of being jumped on from behind by two men, one small and the other very large and heavy; the latter kneeling on his chest and squeezing his windpipe, while the other securely lashed his wrists and ankles together with strips torn from his own robe, their operations being completed by thrusting a gag made of the same material into his mouth and securing it there firmly. The Englishmen then carried him between them into one of the adjacent ruined houses, took him to an upper room, and left him there for his companions to find, if fate should so decree.As a matter of fact, fate evidently decreed against the unhappy man, for several months afterwards the remains of a gagged and bound Chinaman were found in that very house by a party of travelling nomads; but it was a case of the pirate’s life or those of the Englishmen, and it did not take them long to decide which the world could best spare.The sentry having been thus disposed of, Drake and Frobisher struck off across the desert, by the margin of the river, at a good round pace; for since the pirates had posted a guard, it was probable that they would visit him sooner or later, and the Englishmen wanted to be well out of sight before anything of that sort should occur.A little later on they were fortunate enough to come to a village, most of the inhabitants of which were away, as it happened, probably hunting, or fishing, or otherwise engaged upon their usual occupations. Here they secured a hearty meal of rice, bread, cheese, and goats’ milk; after which they found themselves marvellously refreshed, and thought the meal cheap at the price of one of Genghiz Khan’s gold pieces, specially cleaned up for the purpose of payment.It is unnecessary to relate in detail the incidents of the journey of the fugitives back to Tien-tsin, for nothing in the way of real adventure occurred after they had once left the ruined city behind. On the way Drake explained to Frobisher how he had come to attempt his friend’s rescue; and, in a few words, this is how it came about.Drake had returned in theQuernmorefrom England with his cargo, which he duly delivered. Then, as China was purchasing steamers for use as transports, and he was offered about twice his ship’s actual value, he sold her, and so found himself at a loose end, without employment. He regarded this as a favourable opportunity to commence enquiries respecting Frobisher, whom he believed to be still a prisoner in Korea; and, happening to encounter Wong-lih—who had by that time returned from his visit to southern China—he heard the whole of Frobisher’s history, from the moment when the admiral found and rescued him at Asan, to that of his expedition up the river after the pirates. He was also informed that the expedition had failed, and that his friend was either dead or a prisoner. Wong-lih, said Drake, was greatly cut up at losing so promising an officer, a man, too, of whom he had made a friend; but he could not be induced to send a rescue party. He was altogether too busily occupied with matters of moment to his country, and war was so imminent, that, as a matter of fact, the admiral found himself absolutely unable to spare a ship or a crew for such a purpose. Drake therefore determined to ascertain for himself if Frobisher were still alive, and, if so, to attempt his rescue. And as he happened to be a good Chinese linguist, and possessed in a high degree the art of disguising himself, the attempt proved, as has been seen, completely successful.It was exactly two months after Frobisher’s escape from the pirates’ fortress when two very weary, very ragged Englishmen arrived in Tien-tsin; and so bronzed and disreputable did they appear that they could obtain accommodation nowhere until they had proved, by the exhibition of some of their gold, that they were not up-country robbers, but solvent citizens, of merely a temporarily unattractive exterior.This condition was soon altered, with the assistance of a few baths, a shave, and new drill suits; and, having made their toilets, Frobisher proposed starting immediately to report himself to Wong-lih, or whatever admiral happened to be on the spot at the moment. Drake insisted on accompanying him; and accordingly the two men sauntered off toward the Navy Buildings, where they were told that Admiral Wong-lih might be found at the dockyard, busily superintending the fitting out for sea of several repaired and re-boilered cruisers.Upon enquiring the reason for all the bustle and confusion that were everywhere apparent, and the quite unaccustomed businesslike air of the port, Frobisher was informed by the officer to whom he applied for information that Japan had, a few days previously, perpetrated an act which could hardly be interpreted otherwise than as meaning war; and that consequently all possible preparations were being hurriedly made to meet the contingency. Guns were being mounted, ships were being dry-docked, scraped, and painted, nucleus crews were being brought up to fighting strength, and, in short, everything that could be done was being done to place China in a position to send her Navy to sea to encounter the Japanese squadrons; for it was plainly to be seen, said the officer, that, since the first acts of hostility had taken place, a formal declaration of war was merely a matter of a few days, and there was a great deal to be done in the time. Frobisher thanked the man for his information, and then he and Drake hurried on their way toward the dockyard. Truly, the air was full of mutterings and rumours of war.

The single, and scarcely original, exclamation of “Oh!” was all that Captain Drake appeared to be capable of uttering for the moment. His eyes continued to bulge from their sockets, and he looked like a suddenly-awakened somnambulist. He was trying to realise the meaning of what Frobisher had just told him, and was finding it altogether too much for him.

At last Frobisher said, with a laugh: “Well, skipper, the money’s here, sure enough; but so are we, and it remains to be seen whether or not we can get out.”

“We’ll get out all right, don’t you trouble,” returned Drake confidently; “but”—unable as yet to detach his mind from the subject of his suddenly-acquired fortune—“just now you mentioned the name of the gentleman who collected all this stuff—Jenkins Can, I think you said he was called. Who was he, and how did he come to pouch such a pile of loot? Was he one of those old buccaneers, like Morgan and Kidd, that we read about?”

“Well,” replied Frobisher, “he was not exactly a buccaneer, for he was not a sailor, but a landsman; and he operated in a much larger way than either Morgan or Kidd. As a matter of fact he was a Tartar chief in his young days, many centuries ago, who gradually drilled and armed his own tribe, then other tribes, and still others, until he came, in course of time, to have an enormous army under him. The idea then occurred to him to make use of this vast army; and he determined upon no less a task than that of conquering Asia. He did it, too; there’s hardly a square mile of this continent that has not echoed to the tread of his troops. Everywhere he went he was victorious. He took and sacked cities, destroyed them, and sowed the ruins with salt; and it is said that, to this day, no grass will grow where Genghiz Khan’s armies trod. Naturally, in the course of time, he accumulated a vast booty from the cities he captured, and it finally became too large and cumbersome for him to carry about with him, so he determined to alter his tactics for once, and, instead of destroying, to build a city for himself where he could bury his hoard, and which he could make his head-quarters.

“It is well known that he actually did this—various records state it, but those records do not say exactly where. The city, it is said, was founded somewhere in northern China—on the banks of a mighty river, is the wording, I believe; but there are several rivers in China answering that description, so the place might be almost anywhere. Then, years afterward, this man determined to conquer Japan. He fitted out a great armada and sailed for Nippon; but, as in the case of the famous Spanish Armada, a storm arose, and the entire fleet was wrecked. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese lost their lives, and Japan was saved. From that time onward, Genghiz Khan and the records relating to his treasure disappeared; and the city he founded, as well as the treasure, gradually passed into legend, the story being handed down from father to son by word of mouth. The man himself is supposed to have been cast ashore in Japan, where he adopted the dress and customs of the Japanese, in course of time becoming one of themselves, and winning great renown under another name—which I forget for the moment. But antiquarians insist that the name he assumed was but the Japanese rendering of his own former one of Genghiz Khan.

“At any rate, he never returned to China to recover his treasure; and legend has it that it still remained where it had been originally hidden. From time to time, expeditions have been formed for the purpose of searching for this legendary deserted city; but it has remained for us, Drake, to discover it, and to secure Genghiz Khan’s millions. This must be the town, this must be the treasure; for not otherwise can such an enormous hoard be accounted for. Nobody but the conqueror of Asia could ever have amassed so much.”

“That’s very interesting, Mr Frobisher,” said Drake, who had been listening intently; “and it’s a very comforting thought that all this belongs to us, if we can only get out. I suppose, in any case, we had better fill our pockets, lest we should not be able to get back here?”

“It would not be at all a bad idea, skipper,” returned Frobisher; and the two men slipped a few handfuls of the jewels into their pockets, as coolly as though they had been so many pebbles instead of gems worth several thousands of pounds.

“And now,” said Frobisher, “we had better turn our attention to getting out of this. I shall not feel comfortable until I have satisfied myself that this place is not going to prove a living tomb for us.”

They closed the lids of all the chests, and passed through what Frobisher called “the door-way of swords”, carefully closing the door behind them by means of a stick, lest the closing should again set the swords in motion. But it did not; the mechanism was evidently so arranged as only to operate upon the opening of the door.

“I do not think we need fear burglars here,” said Drake with a smile, as the door clanged shut.

The two men then decided to explore the remainder of the corridors, for unless an exit from one of them could be found there was little doubt that the treasure would prove as useless to them as it had been to Genghiz Khan himself.

The first passage they explored ended in a blank wall, as the three others had done; but in the next, to their great relief, they found another passage branching away to the left. This they followed for some distance, until they reached a spot where it branched into two. As there was no knowing which, if either, was the right one, they took the one on the left, as the previous opening had been on the left of the corridor, and followed it for a considerable distance. But they were doomed to disappointment; the corridor led nowhere. It simply came to what seemed to be a dead end, like the others. Frobisher felt the drops of sweat forming on his forehead, for it was beginning to look remarkably as though there was but one entrance to the vault—that through which they had come—and that all these other passages were either natural, or had been cut simply with the idea of mystifying and misleading possible intruders.

“Never say die” was, however, Frobisher’s motto, and Drake’s too, for that matter, so they tried back and entered the right-hand branch. But no better success attended them here, this ending in a blank wall also. There was now only one corridor untried, and with sinking hearts they proceeded to explore it.

No exit of any sort rewarded them here either, and hardly daring to look each other in the face, from fear of what they might see there, they returned to the main chamber, into which Drake had fallen headlong in the first instance. Here they could still hear the distant shouts and trampling of the pirates, who were evidently moving about in the chamber directly overhead, continuing the search for their prey; but even the thought that they were safe from those barbarous savages was now hardly sufficient to cheer them. It would have been almost better to have met death in the open, fighting, than to be compelled to watch his slow approach in this dismal place, far below the level of the ground.

Unable to remain still, Frobisher again most carefully examined the inside of the secret door in search of a hidden spring, but no sign of it could he discover. It seemed evident that, unless the door were actually propped open by the person entering the vault, there was no getting back by that way; and Frobisher could not help thinking that surely some other exit must have been provided. The people accustomed to using the vault could not be expected always to remember to prop the door open when they entered; and it did not seem reasonable to suppose that the place had been so constructed that a mere lapse of memory would be tantamount to a person signing his own death-warrant. An emergency exit must have been made for use in case the main door became closed accidentally or otherwise; but the question was, where was it situated?

Drake suggested that there must undoubtedly be an opening somewhere, because the air in the vault was comparatively pure and fresh; at least it had not the dead, stale, stuffy smell of air confined in a hermetically-sealed chamber. But Frobisher pointed out that the door by which they had entered, although an excellent fit, did not butt up against the jambs so closely as to exclude the air altogether; yet he acknowledged that the air in the vault certainly seemed sweeter than might have been expected, had the main door been the only channel through which it could filter in.

Under the stimulus of the new glimmer of hope thus caught, every corridor was once more explored, even more closely than before, but with no other result than that Frobisher completely satisfied himself that there was most certainly no exit from any of the passages. Even a concealed door, opened by a spring, could hardly have evaded the close scrutiny of the two men; and it became more and more apparent that they had been caught in a trap from which there was no escape. Both were feeling famished for want of food, and were parched with thirst; and Frobisher could not help wondering how long the agony of death from starvation and thirst would be prolonged before blessed unconsciousness came to their relief.

Suddenly—they had both been sitting dejectedly on the floor—Frobisher jumped to his feet.

“Look here, Drake,” he exclaimed, “there is just one place that we never thought of searching, and that’s the treasure chamber itself. We were too deeply interested in the valuables we found to think of looking for an exit in there. Who knows?—the very thing we are hunting for may be in there all the time.”

The two men fairly raced down the passage leading to the chamber, opened the latch, with all due caution, and re-entered the vault. At first sight there appeared to be no semblance of a second door, and their hopes dropped to zero once more. Then Drake proposed that, as a last chance, they should remove the chests to the centre of the room and see whether, possibly, there might be a door concealed behind any of them. They set to work feverishly, and in doing so spilled the jewels and coins in heaps on the floor. But what did that matter? Unless they found a way of escape from their prison, jewels and coin would be of far less value to them than a loaf of bread and a jar of water.

Then, at the very end, when their hopes were practically extinguished, the last chests removed disclosed a little oaken door set into the wall, not more than four feet high by three feet broad. Drake was about to open it impulsively when Frobisher restrained him. He did not want either of them to be killed on the very threshold of success by some other hidden and fiendishly ingenious piece of mechanism. But when cautiously opened with the aid of one of the sticks, nothing happened in this instance, and they crawled safely through into another passage, being careful to close the door behind them.

This passage looked a good deal more promising, there being no less than four other corridors branching off it at right angles, each, curiously enough, leading away to the left. But they determined to go straight ahead in the first instance, exploring the corridors afterwards, if not successful in their present direction. They traversed so long a distance in a perfectly straight line, the ground rising gently all the way, that they soon became convinced that they were at last on the right track, as the passage must, some distance back, have passed from under the foundations of the palace itself, and be leading, undoubtedly, to some exit at a considerable distance from the building. It seemed probable that it might have been constructed with a view to providing a means of escape, should the palace ever be attacked and stormed.

That they were correct in their surmise was proved shortly afterward when, a little distance ahead, Frobisher caught sight of a pin-hole of light. This presently resolved itself into sunlight shining through the keyhole of another door; and they realised that, since it was now broad daylight, they must have spent several hours in Genghiz Khan’s treasure-house. The door did not open with a handle, as the others had done, and there was no key hanging handily on the wall, as there had been when Frobisher escaped out of the pirate fortress; so that, after all, there was still a rather formidable obstacle to be overcome before they could actually stand in the blessed light of day again.

“We must not let this stop us, Drake,” exclaimed Frobisher; “though I don’t yet quite see what we are to do. If we had a big stone we could burst the lock off, or out; but there isn’t so much as a pebble to be seen anywhere about.”

“How far are we away from the palace, do you think?” asked Drake. “If we are out of earshot of the pirates, I can easily manage it.”

“A good quarter of a mile, I should say,” replied Frobisher. “You could fire a rifle in here and they would never hear it.”

“I mean to do something like that,” returned the other. He produced his revolver, the muzzle of which he thrust against the keyhole, and pulled the trigger, turning his face aside at the same time.

The explosion in that confined space sounded like the roar of a twelve-inch gun, and dust and splinters flew in clouds; but when the air cleared the lock was gone, and in its place a ragged hole appeared, through which a clenched fist could easily be thrust. One or two strong pulls, both together, while gripping the edges of the hole, sufficed to loosen the whole affair, and presently, with a rattle of falling pieces of broken iron and springs, the door grated open, and they once more beheld the blessed light of day.

On stepping outside, they found themselves in the midst of a thick clump of bushes and vegetation which completely concealed the door from outside, and which had evidently not been disturbed for centuries, so thick and matted was the growth. Through this they pushed and broke their way, coming out a few moments later into what was evidently the remains of a once-spacious and magnificent garden. There were still traceable the outlines of old walks and lawns; ruined fountains and marble basins for gold-fish were scattered about; and there were even the remains of marble seats and couches whereon the warriors of Genghiz Khan’s retinue had been wont to take their ease during their all-too-brief respites from fighting. Sundials, beautifully modelled in bronze, and statues, in bronze, copper, marble, and in some cases even solid silver, were to be found in many of the corners. A few were still on their pedestals, but most of them lay broken on the ground, though all gave evidence of the high level to which Chinese art had advanced, even in those far-off days.

A quarter of a mile away was to be seen the palace the pair had recently vacated, and, peering cautiously from behind a screen of brushwood, they were able to make out the figures of some of the pirates, still apparently searching industriously; while the smoke of a fire, a little distance away, showed that they had by no means given up the pursuit, but were cooking a meal preparatory to instituting a fresh search of the palace precincts. They had not yet, apparently, thought of looking in the gardens.

“Think we dare risk it?” enquired Drake, voicing the idea uppermost in both their minds, and pointing toward the groups of unconscious pirates.

“Yes,” replied Frobisher. “They seem to be pretty fully occupied with their own concerns just now, and are evidently under the impression that we are still hiding somewhere in the building, so I think we could not hope for a better opportunity. They must, without fail, eventually discover that we are nowhere in the building, so we had better get away before they take it into their heads to start searching in this direction. I expect both groups have joined forces by this time, to participate in that meal they are preparing, so we should be able to get clear of the town without being seen.”

This point settled, the pair made their way cautiously out of the gardens, and soon gained the streets, which they traversed slowly, to save themselves as much as possible in case the pursuit should again be taken up. And in about half an hour, during which they had perceived no cause for alarm, they realised, by the gradual thinning of the houses, that they were approaching the outskirts of the city on its eastern side.

They were proceeding carefully, conversing, and noting the interesting relics of a bygone civilisation, when, without a word, Drake suddenly seized his companion’s arm and hastily dragged him behind a convenient wall. Frobisher, too much astonished for words, could only look round, wonderingly, imagining that the pirates were after them again; and as he did so, he perceived the cause of the skipper’s alarm.

The danger was not behind, but in front. The pirates had proved to be wider awake than either of the Englishmen had anticipated, and had posted a sentry at the eastern gate. Fortunately for them, the man happened to be looking in another direction at the moment when they turned the corner, or discovery would have been inevitable. As it was, the question arose—how was this fresh obstacle to be overcome? They might possibly avoid the man by making a long détour to some other gate, but this plan appealed to neither of them, for even should they succeed in escaping by some other outlet, the ground outside the walls was so bare that the man must inevitably see them. The alarm would be raised, when of course the pursuit would at once be resumed, and their capture become certain.

A few words between the two Englishmen sufficed to show that the same plan—the only practicable one—had occurred to both; and, avoiding the main street, they made their way through side lanes and back alleys until they emerged at a spot only a few yards distant from the unsuspecting sentinel. Then, watching through a convenient cranny until his back was turned, they ran swiftly forward and concealed themselves behind a low stone wall which the man was passing and repassing on his beat.

The next time he passed that wall the sentry experienced the unpleasant sensation of being jumped on from behind by two men, one small and the other very large and heavy; the latter kneeling on his chest and squeezing his windpipe, while the other securely lashed his wrists and ankles together with strips torn from his own robe, their operations being completed by thrusting a gag made of the same material into his mouth and securing it there firmly. The Englishmen then carried him between them into one of the adjacent ruined houses, took him to an upper room, and left him there for his companions to find, if fate should so decree.

As a matter of fact, fate evidently decreed against the unhappy man, for several months afterwards the remains of a gagged and bound Chinaman were found in that very house by a party of travelling nomads; but it was a case of the pirate’s life or those of the Englishmen, and it did not take them long to decide which the world could best spare.

The sentry having been thus disposed of, Drake and Frobisher struck off across the desert, by the margin of the river, at a good round pace; for since the pirates had posted a guard, it was probable that they would visit him sooner or later, and the Englishmen wanted to be well out of sight before anything of that sort should occur.

A little later on they were fortunate enough to come to a village, most of the inhabitants of which were away, as it happened, probably hunting, or fishing, or otherwise engaged upon their usual occupations. Here they secured a hearty meal of rice, bread, cheese, and goats’ milk; after which they found themselves marvellously refreshed, and thought the meal cheap at the price of one of Genghiz Khan’s gold pieces, specially cleaned up for the purpose of payment.

It is unnecessary to relate in detail the incidents of the journey of the fugitives back to Tien-tsin, for nothing in the way of real adventure occurred after they had once left the ruined city behind. On the way Drake explained to Frobisher how he had come to attempt his friend’s rescue; and, in a few words, this is how it came about.

Drake had returned in theQuernmorefrom England with his cargo, which he duly delivered. Then, as China was purchasing steamers for use as transports, and he was offered about twice his ship’s actual value, he sold her, and so found himself at a loose end, without employment. He regarded this as a favourable opportunity to commence enquiries respecting Frobisher, whom he believed to be still a prisoner in Korea; and, happening to encounter Wong-lih—who had by that time returned from his visit to southern China—he heard the whole of Frobisher’s history, from the moment when the admiral found and rescued him at Asan, to that of his expedition up the river after the pirates. He was also informed that the expedition had failed, and that his friend was either dead or a prisoner. Wong-lih, said Drake, was greatly cut up at losing so promising an officer, a man, too, of whom he had made a friend; but he could not be induced to send a rescue party. He was altogether too busily occupied with matters of moment to his country, and war was so imminent, that, as a matter of fact, the admiral found himself absolutely unable to spare a ship or a crew for such a purpose. Drake therefore determined to ascertain for himself if Frobisher were still alive, and, if so, to attempt his rescue. And as he happened to be a good Chinese linguist, and possessed in a high degree the art of disguising himself, the attempt proved, as has been seen, completely successful.

It was exactly two months after Frobisher’s escape from the pirates’ fortress when two very weary, very ragged Englishmen arrived in Tien-tsin; and so bronzed and disreputable did they appear that they could obtain accommodation nowhere until they had proved, by the exhibition of some of their gold, that they were not up-country robbers, but solvent citizens, of merely a temporarily unattractive exterior.

This condition was soon altered, with the assistance of a few baths, a shave, and new drill suits; and, having made their toilets, Frobisher proposed starting immediately to report himself to Wong-lih, or whatever admiral happened to be on the spot at the moment. Drake insisted on accompanying him; and accordingly the two men sauntered off toward the Navy Buildings, where they were told that Admiral Wong-lih might be found at the dockyard, busily superintending the fitting out for sea of several repaired and re-boilered cruisers.

Upon enquiring the reason for all the bustle and confusion that were everywhere apparent, and the quite unaccustomed businesslike air of the port, Frobisher was informed by the officer to whom he applied for information that Japan had, a few days previously, perpetrated an act which could hardly be interpreted otherwise than as meaning war; and that consequently all possible preparations were being hurriedly made to meet the contingency. Guns were being mounted, ships were being dry-docked, scraped, and painted, nucleus crews were being brought up to fighting strength, and, in short, everything that could be done was being done to place China in a position to send her Navy to sea to encounter the Japanese squadrons; for it was plainly to be seen, said the officer, that, since the first acts of hostility had taken place, a formal declaration of war was merely a matter of a few days, and there was a great deal to be done in the time. Frobisher thanked the man for his information, and then he and Drake hurried on their way toward the dockyard. Truly, the air was full of mutterings and rumours of war.

Chapter Sixteen.The Dragon Awakes.On their way to the dockyard, while passing along the “Street of Many Waters”, they heard in the distance the sound of a military band, playing very barbaric music—to English ears, that is to say—but in what was undoubtedly “march” time. Presently they found themselves compelled to halt for about five minutes at a cross street, named “The Lotus”, while several companies of a Chinese Line regiment went swinging past on their way to the barracks; and Drake and his companion could not refrain from commenting favourably upon the smart and businesslike appearance of the men.They were, it appeared, part of a crack corps; and every officer and private seemed fully to realise the fact, and to be proud of it. There was not a single soldier among them standing less than six feet in height, and the majority were broad in proportion. The Navy men whom Frobisher had so far encountered were usually uniformed somewhat after the fashion of European officers and seamen. The officers wore the flat, peaked cap, with a gold dragon in front instead of the crown and anchor, while their jackets and trousers of dark-blue cloth were almost exactly similar to those of our own men, except that the facings, instead of being gold, were of that peculiar shade of blue so much in favour among the Chinese. The ordinary tars wore the conventional dark—blue, baggy trousers, and a blouse of the same colour, cut to a “V” shape at the neck in front, but minus the collar at the back which European seamen have adopted, while the skirt of the blouse was allowed to hang loose outside the trousers, instead of being tucked in. The only essential difference between the Celestial seamen’s uniform and our own lay in the cap, which, instead of being flat and dark-blue in colour, was of the conventional Chinese shape and white in colour, with a knob of some soft material on the top. Their pigtails were rolled up and tucked into the crown of these caps—or, more correctly, hats. Their arms consisted of rifles—which, Frobisher noted, were of widely-different patterns, most of them obsolete, although all were breech-loaders—and a kind of cutlass, somewhat similar to the British naval weapon, but with a two-handed hilt, and only a small, circular piece of polished brass for a guard.The soldiery, however, smart though they were, in no way resembled those of European armies. Their uniforms, all similar of course, consisted of identically the same hat as that worn in the Navy; a white jacket, very long and very loose, with baggy sleeves, the collar, front, and skirt, and the edges of the cuffs all edged with broad Chinese-blue braid; and short and baggy trousers, gathered just below the knee, and tucked into a kind of “puttee” legging, consisting of a long wrapping of white canvas. The trousers were also white, with a Chinese-blue stripe of broad braid down the outside—and, strangely enough, the inside also—of the leg. The boots were eminently sensible and serviceable, and were something like the Red Indian’s moccasin, the uppers being made of two thicknesses of deer hide, which were kept on the foot by means of a narrow tape run through eyelets, while the soles were built up of several thicknesses of felt, amounting in all to about an inch and a half. They had an appearance of great clumsiness, but were, as a matter of fact, extremely light, springy, and comfortable. The thickness of the soles, the springiness of the felt, and the absence of heels made the boots particularly easy to march in, and the soldiers were thus able to cover great distances without feeling fatigue. These men, instead of hiding their pigtails under their head-gear, allowed them to hang down; and some of them, Frobisher observed, were of great length, in some cases falling as low as the back of the knee.For arms the men carried rifles, of a more modern pattern than those in use in the sister service; in fact, they seemed, so far as Frobisher could see without close inspection, to be Martini weapons of the 1879 pattern—a most serviceable and reliable fire-arm, far superior to the modern small-bore rifle in the opinion of soldiers themselves, as a man-stopper and rush-checker. A long, wicked-looking bayonet with a basket hilt, the back of the blade serrated for three-quarters of its length, like the edge of a large saw, swung from the left hip; and the armoury was completed by a long-hilted, long-bladed knife, or short sword, stuck through the belt which supported the bayonet. They would certainly be a “tough crowd to meet at close quarters”, as Drake murmured to his companion while the men swung past.The soldiers appeared to be extremely partial to flags, for there seemed to be one to every twenty or thirty men. These were all identical in shape and colour, being triangular and yellow, with the device of a crimson dragon, open-jawed, in the centre.As soon as the men had passed, Frobisher and Drake continued their walk, and shortly afterward reached the entrance to the dockyard, where they were sharply challenged in Chinese by a sentry. Fortunately, as has been before noted, Drake was an excellent Chinese scholar; and, in answer to his explanation that they were in search of Admiral Wong-lih, the man allowed them to pass, and very civilly directed them where to go, having seen the officer in question pass but a short time previously.While Drake was obtaining this information Frobisher amused himself by looking around him; and as he did so, he caught sight of a very gorgeously dressed official approaching, attended by several servants, one of whom was holding a large umbrella over his master’s head, while another timidly supported the heavy silken train of the mandarin’s cloak. There was something familiar about this man’s appearance, but the Englishman could not remember whether or not he had really met him before, or whether it was only a resemblance to some other that had attracted his notice. He was a man of very high standing—there could be no doubt about that; for, while he was yet some ten yards away, the sentry abruptly ceased his conversation with Drake, pushed the little skipper aside, and presented arms, his face assuming the fixed expression of a wooden image, touched, Frobisher imagined, with more than a trace of fear. And indeed, upon closer inspection, the official’s countenance itself was seen to be anything but pleasant in expression.He did not deign to return the sentry’s salute, but stared in a particularly offensive manner at the two Englishmen, finally coming to a halt and putting several questions to the sentry, who replied in tones that positively quavered with apprehension. During this time the personage never took his eyes off the two friends, and Frobisher was on the point of losing his temper when the unknown, with a distinctly perceptible sneer, turned his back rudely and, with a curt command to his waiting attendants, stalked majestically away.“Who the—?”“What a—” began Drake and Frobisher simultaneously, then stopped. Frobisher, simmering with rage, continued:“Drake, ask this sentry, here, who in thunder that insolent bounder is. By Jingo! I have half a mind to go after him and tweak his pigtail soundly. Why, he looked at us as though we were dirt beneath his feet—as though we had no business to be alive. Confound his impudence!”Drake, fully as indignant, sharply put the desired question, and in reply received a long explanation from the sentry, who constantly sent glances after the mandarin, as though fearful that the latter might overhear what he was saying, even at that distance. Presently he concluded, and Drake translated whilst the two continued their search for Wong-lih.“The fellow says,” explained Drake, “that the individual who treated us to such a close scrutiny is a very important official indeed. He is one of the members—the chief, in fact—of the Naval Council, also a four-button mandarin, entitled to wear the insignia of the golden peacock. And he is also the captain of the battleshipTing-yuen, the flagship of the Chinese northern fleet, which flies the flag of the celebrated Admiral Ting himself. Last, but by no means least, he holds an important post in the dockyard (though how he manages to carry out the duties of that and those of captain at one and the same time I do not know); while, to cap everything, he is a member of the Chinese Royal Family, a Prince, no less, I assure you. What do you think of that for a tally, eh, Mr Frobisher?”“Well, I am rather inclined to be sorry for the people who come under the scope of his Naval jurisdiction,” returned Frobisher. “I should hate to serve in any ship of which he was captain. Of course I don’t know the fellow from Adam, but there is something about him that aroused in me a very strong sense of repulsion; he looked to me like an arch-criminal. By the way, did the man tell you what his name was? I feel sure I’ve seen him somewhere before; I remember that repellent, snaky look in his eyes, which gives one the shivers up and down one’s spine.”“Oh ay,” replied the skipper; “I’d forgotten that. He did mention his tally, as a matter of fact. Let’s see—um—what was it again? Ah, I remember. He called him Prince See—at least, that’s what it sounded like.”“By Jove! then I remember when I met him last, Drake,” exclaimed Frobisher. “It was when I went with my friend the admiral to the Council meeting at the Navy Building, when I received my commission in the Chinese Navy. Wong-lih mentioned then, that his name was Prince Hsi; and I recollect how very unpleasantly he impressed me then. It appears also that he is a bit of a scoundrel; for in Wong-lih’s absence in Korea the fellow had the audacity to send theChih’ Yuen, the ship I was to be appointed to, to Wei-hai-wei to have her 9.4’s replaced by 12-inch guns, intending to sell the smaller weapons, substitute old, out-of-date twelves, and pocket the difference. But, luckily, Wong-lih met her on the way there, screwed the information out of her captain, and stopped Hsi’s little game. He hates Wong-lih, therefore; and, as I am a friend of the admiral’s, he has honoured me also with a share of his dislike.”“The low-down, ruffianly swab!” Drake burst out. “But there! that’s just the sort of beast he looks. Well, Mr Frobisher, if, as you say, he dislikes you—and from the way he looked at you I should say that ‘hate’ was the more correct word—I would advise you to keep your weather eye lifting. That sort of man hesitates at very little, and he seems to have the power, as well as the will, to do you a bad turn; so watch out!”“I will, Drake,” replied Frobisher; “you can rely on that. But here we are at last, I think; this is the place where the sentry said we should find Wong-lih, isn’t it?”“Ordnance Wharf, third shed along, first door on the far side of the sheer-legs before you come to the fifty-ton crane, he said,” replied Drake; “so I reckon that this is the door. And, by Jiminy! there is the admiral himself, walking beside the other officer in gold lace—a flag-captain, I should say, by his aiguillettes.”“That’s him, right enough,” agreed Frobisher, and together the two men set off in pursuit, keeping a little in the rear until the two officers should have finished their conversation.Presently the captain saluted and went off about his own business, and Wong-lih, turning, caught sight of Drake and Frobisher. As his eyes fell upon the latter, he stood stock-still, his jaw dropped, his eyebrows went up, and he looked as though he had seen a ghost.“Why, Captain Frobisher,” he exclaimed at last, coming forward and holding out his hand, “is it then really you? My dear boy, I am glad to see you again, safe and sound, too, by all appearances. I have been mourning you as dead these three months and more, ever since I got back from the south and learnt of the disaster to theSu-chenon the Hoang-ho. I never expected to see you alive again when I heard that you had fallen into the clutches of the pirates; and I was more grieved than I can tell you—as Captain Drake here can testify—not to be able to send a rescue party after you to try to save, or at least avenge, you. But it was absolutely impossible; I had neither ships nor men to spare. The imminence of our war with Japan, which has been threatening daily for months past, and which is now an all-but-acknowledged fact, would not allow of it. Much as I regretted you, my country naturally was my first consideration.”“Of course, sir,” agreed Frobisher heartily; “I quite understand. I, too, am delighted to see you once more; indeed, I came down here to the yard on purpose to find you and report myself ready for duty. I hope, sir, that you can still employ me.”“Employ you?” ejaculated the admiral. “I should rather say we can! Why, I could use hundreds of men like you, if only they existed in China. But come along to my office; we can talk more comfortably there. And you too, Captain Drake, if you will so far honour my poor quarters.”“With pleasure, with pleasure, my lord—your maj–—er—Sir, I mean,” Drake almost shouted, in his confusion, quite “flabbergasted”, as he himself would have called it, at the Chinaman’s stately, old-world courtesy. And a few minutes later they found themselves in Wong-lih’s comfortably-furnished office, in the ordnance department of the dockyard. Arrived there, and having seated themselves, the admiral ordered refreshments, and immediately plunged into the matter always nearest his heart, now more so than ever.“Since you have reported, Captain Frobisher,” he commenced, “I take it that you are ready for service at any moment.”“This instant, if you wish it, sir,” answered Frobisher.“Thank you, Captain!” said Wong-lih. “That is practically what it amounts to. Your ship, theChih’ Yuen, is here now; and I would like you to take command of her at the earliest possible moment. She is in readiness to go to sea, with stores, ammunition, and men aboard—would be at sea now, as a matter of fact, had we had an officer to whom we dared trust her. And you, sir,” turning to Drake, “are you willing to accept service under my Emperor? If so, I can offer you a berth.”“Certainly I am, your Highness,” replied Drake heartily. “Only, if I may be so bold as to say so, I should like to be on the same ship as my fr— as Captain Frobisher here.”“Say ‘friend’, Drake,” broke in Frobisher. “It was on the tip of your tongue, and it is the truth. If a man who saves another’s life is not a friend, I do not know what else you would call him.”“Quite right, Captain Frobisher,” said Wong-lih. “I like to hear you say that. And as for you, Mr Drake, I can satisfy your wish very easily, as it happens. The acting first lieutenant of Mr Frobisher’s ship is not fitted for the post, but he was the best we had at the time. Now, if you choose, you shall replace him as first lieutenant of theChih’ Yuen, and I will have your commission made out immediately.”“Nothing would please me better, my lord,” replied Drake, with the utmost enthusiasm; “and I assure you that you—”“Very well, then,” interrupted the admiral, who was plainly hard pressed for time; “that’s agreed. You shall receive your commission to-night. And now, gentlemen both, although I am so busy that I scarcely know what to do first, I must spare the time to give you a short account of the state of affairs as it stands at present, since it is necessary that you should have the fullest information to enable you—you in particular, Captain Frobisher—to understand exactly how things are with China, and how extremely critical the situation is. When you have heard what I am about to tell you, you will be able to form your own ideas and plans, and so be in a position to work intelligently with your brother captains, and under the admiral who is going to command the northern fleet, to which you will be attached. I may mention that I am to be in command of the southern division, while Admiral Ting will be your chief.“You remember, of course, Captain Frobisher, that when the rebellion in Korea became so serious that the Government could not deal with it, the Korean Minister asked our assistance, and we gave it, as you saw, at Asan. I also informed you then that Japan had thereupon thought fit to manifest a somewhat unfriendly attitude by sending an unnecessarily strong guard to her Minister at Seoul, coupled with an intimation that she would feel obliged to send a much larger force if the rebellion was not immediately crushed. That, in itself, as we fully realised, amounted very nearly to a threat of war against China, and showed us that Japan was only awaiting her opportunity. We therefore sent a very strongly worded protest against such action to Tokio; and the Japanese thereupon agreed to defer action until it could be seen what turn events in Korea were going to take.“That was the situation when you were sent in theSu-chenup the Hoang-ho; and those of us who had eyes to see and ears to hear were fully awake to the fact that this concession on the part of Japan was merely a postponement of the evil day. Perhaps she found she was not as fully prepared for war as she had imagined. I know we were not. My colleagues and I, and those of us who had our country’s interests at heart, took warning, therefore, and hurried forward our preparations for war as rapidly as we could.“Then things remained fairly quiescent until a few days ago. We had practically quelled the Korean rebellion, and matters were resuming their normal status in Korea, the only thing that remained being to institute the reforms which were undoubtedly necessary in that country. The proposals for these were offered to, and accepted by, the Korean Government; and the proposed modifications of policy began to take shape at once. One would therefore have thought that our little campaign in Korea might be said to have terminated satisfactorily, and that Korea might be left to carry out the course of action to which she had pledged herself. In fact, we actually commenced the withdrawal of our troops.“Then, suddenly, Japan sprang her mine. Our Minister at Seoul was informed by the Japanese representative that Japan did not consider Korea competent to carry out her promises, and that therefore Japan would unite with China to carry out the reforms between them. This, of course, was tantamount to Japan claiming the right to share China’s suzerainty over Korea, a most audacious and—I may almost call it—infamous proposition. It was one to which Japan, of course, knew we would never agree, and we told her so in very plain terms.“The next thing we heard was that Japan had landed no fewer that five thousand men in Korea, and that they were marching on Seoul; and on the same day the Japanese Minister there forced the situation by tendering two ultimatums—one to Korea, and one to us. The Korean ultimatum required that, within twenty-four hours, Korea should disclaim Chinese suzerainty and pledge herself to allow Japan alone to carry out the reforms in question. The alternative was that, if Korea would not agree, she was to be treated as an enemy to Japan. The ultimatum addressed to us was to the effect that we should, also within the same time, surrender our suzerainty to Japan and relinquish all claims over Korea—the alternative in our case being war!“Of course we could not possibly send a reply within the time stipulated; and even if we could, we should have refused the proposal with scorn. Our Minister at Seoul did all that man could do to gain time, and sent the news to us immediately. As soon as we heard of Japan’s action we knew that the anticipated moment had come, and that war had become inevitable; we therefore hurried eight thousand men on board transports, and dispatched them at once to Asan. And now comes a circumstance it almost breaks my heart to tell.“War had not yet been actually declared, you understand, and Japan was still officially awaiting our decision; yet the Japanese fleet, in its full strength, lay in wait for our transports and the convoying men-of-war, and attacked them, sinking the transportKowshing, with over a thousand men on board, and one of our cruisers. The other transports and cruisers escaped and got safely to Asan, where the troops were landed, the ships sheltering under the guns of the fortress. The messenger who brought the news of this treacherous attack informed us that the five thousand Japanese troops which I mentioned just now, having reached Seoul, had been dispatched again immediately, under General Oshima, to Asan to attack the garrison there. They met a small force of our soldiers four days later, at Song-hwan, and, I am sorry to say, defeated them; and the only silver lining to our cloud lies in the surprise those Japanese will receive when they find themselves met at Asan by seven thousand of our men, instead of only the small garrison of the place; for it is not very likely that Oshima’s force, being on the march, will have heard either of the naval battle, or of our successful landing of the majority of our men at Asan.“The sea fight occurred a week ago, but we only received news of the land battle to-day; and although we have been taken unawares by Japan’s treachery in striking before the declaration of war, we have managed to prepare ourselves pretty well, thanks to the warnings we had that this was coming. Mark me!—Japan shall find to her cost that she cannot insult and ride rough-shod over my country without being called to very strict account. War, Mr Frobisher, will be declared by China against Japan tomorrow, the 1st of August; and I rely upon you, as well as upon all the rest of my officers, to do your utmost to keep command of the sea. The country which secures that will have the other at her mercy; and we ought to be able to secure it, as our Navy is, if anything, a little more powerful than that of Japan, seeing that we have two battleships, as well as cruisers, whereas Japan has only cruisers. That is the situation, gentlemen; and you are now as fully posted as I am with regard to the state of affairs; so strike hard and often for China, when you get the opportunity.”“We will, sir,” replied both men enthusiastically.“But,” continued Frobisher, “I trust that our ammunition will prove very different from that supplied me on theSu-chen. You probably heard that the expedition failed for no other reason than that more than half our shells were filled with charcoal instead of gunpowder?”“Alas! alas! I did,” replied Wong-lih; “and I wish I could promise you that such monstrous iniquities should never occur again. But I cannot. I am doing, and have always done, my best to prevent this shameful tampering with Government property; but what can one man do, amongst so many? You will remember that I told you the mandarins were filling their pockets at the expense of their country; and there is no telling how far their peculations may have extended. I have examined as much ammunition as I have had time for, and I am bound to say that it looks all right; but beyond that I cannot go, for it is impossible to know for certain without opening every cartridge, and at a crisis like this, that would be an impossibility. You must do as I do, and trust that your powder will prove what it pretends to be.”“Very well, sir,” returned Frobisher, bowing. “It does not seem a very satisfactory state of affairs; but I shall do my best, I assure you.”“I am certain of it,” returned Wong-lih. “And now, one last word. Sorry as I am to have to acknowledge it, there are traitors everywhere about us, so trust no one but yourself and your admiral. News must have been conveyed to Japan by one of my countrymen to have enabled her fleet to know when the transports sailed, and where to meet them. That man, whoever he is, has Japanese gold in his pocket, and the blood of a thousand of his countrymen on his head.”Drake and Frobisher exchanged glances involuntarily. The same suspicion had evidently crossed the mind of each simultaneously.“Do you suspect anyone in particular, sir?” enquired Frobisher. “If so, perhaps you will kindly warn me in which direction to exercise the most care.”“I am sorry to say that I do suspect someone most strongly,” was Wong-lih’s reply, after a somewhat lengthy pause. “But, unfortunately, he is so highly placed that even I dare not mention his name. If the man so much as guessed that I suspected his treachery, I should be assassinated within twenty-four hours; so, for my country’s sake, I must refrain from telling you something I would give a good deal to be able to do.”“Someone very highly placed?” repeated Frobisher, drawing his chair a little closer to Wong-lih’s, and lowering his voice. “Should I be very wide of the mark in guessing him to be a prince of the blood royal?”Wong-lih turned pale, and glanced uneasily round him. “You would be, on the contrary, very near the truth, if my suspicions are correct,” he replied. “That man has played many a scurvy trick in his time; but his other delinquencies are light compared with treachery to his country; and I fear to breathe his name in connection with so horrible a crime. But tell me, how came you to suspect also? Have you any grounds?”“None,” replied Frobisher. “But I have met the man twice, and on each occasion he has impressed me most unfavourably. I suppose one should take no notice of intuitions; but he certainly looks a thorough scoundrel, to my mind. I shall watch him as carefully as I can.”“Do,” said the admiral. “You say you have met him twice; I recollect the first time, but do not recall a second. When was it?”“Not an hour ago, sir,” returned Frobisher. “I met him, with his retinue, just leaving the dockyard. He honoured me so far as to treat me to a very impertinent scrutiny as he passed.”“Leaving the dockyard!” echoed Wong-lih. “I did not see him about here. He ought to be on board his ship, theTing Yuen, by rights, for she is quite ready for sea; and I know Admiral Ting is only too eager to take his fleet out to look for the enemy. Indeed, as soon as you are aboard theChih’ Yuenand have hoisted your flag, he is likely to make the signal to proceed to sea. No; that man had no business here. I wonder what he was doing.”Acting upon Wong-lih’s hint that the interview had better terminate, Frobisher and Drake took their leave of the kindly admiral, and went back into the city to transact some necessary business before going on board. This included securing uniforms, and suits of mufti, toilet articles, and, in fact, personal requisites of every kind, of which both men had been destitute for several months past. This business having been transacted, their new possessions were packed and sent to the ship, and Frobisher and Drake followed immediately afterward. Arrived on board, the former had his commission read by the interpreter (for it was, of course, written in Chinese script), and at last, after many strange vicissitudes, found himself standing on his own quarterdeck, captain of the Chinese cruiserChih’ Yuen.

On their way to the dockyard, while passing along the “Street of Many Waters”, they heard in the distance the sound of a military band, playing very barbaric music—to English ears, that is to say—but in what was undoubtedly “march” time. Presently they found themselves compelled to halt for about five minutes at a cross street, named “The Lotus”, while several companies of a Chinese Line regiment went swinging past on their way to the barracks; and Drake and his companion could not refrain from commenting favourably upon the smart and businesslike appearance of the men.

They were, it appeared, part of a crack corps; and every officer and private seemed fully to realise the fact, and to be proud of it. There was not a single soldier among them standing less than six feet in height, and the majority were broad in proportion. The Navy men whom Frobisher had so far encountered were usually uniformed somewhat after the fashion of European officers and seamen. The officers wore the flat, peaked cap, with a gold dragon in front instead of the crown and anchor, while their jackets and trousers of dark-blue cloth were almost exactly similar to those of our own men, except that the facings, instead of being gold, were of that peculiar shade of blue so much in favour among the Chinese. The ordinary tars wore the conventional dark—blue, baggy trousers, and a blouse of the same colour, cut to a “V” shape at the neck in front, but minus the collar at the back which European seamen have adopted, while the skirt of the blouse was allowed to hang loose outside the trousers, instead of being tucked in. The only essential difference between the Celestial seamen’s uniform and our own lay in the cap, which, instead of being flat and dark-blue in colour, was of the conventional Chinese shape and white in colour, with a knob of some soft material on the top. Their pigtails were rolled up and tucked into the crown of these caps—or, more correctly, hats. Their arms consisted of rifles—which, Frobisher noted, were of widely-different patterns, most of them obsolete, although all were breech-loaders—and a kind of cutlass, somewhat similar to the British naval weapon, but with a two-handed hilt, and only a small, circular piece of polished brass for a guard.

The soldiery, however, smart though they were, in no way resembled those of European armies. Their uniforms, all similar of course, consisted of identically the same hat as that worn in the Navy; a white jacket, very long and very loose, with baggy sleeves, the collar, front, and skirt, and the edges of the cuffs all edged with broad Chinese-blue braid; and short and baggy trousers, gathered just below the knee, and tucked into a kind of “puttee” legging, consisting of a long wrapping of white canvas. The trousers were also white, with a Chinese-blue stripe of broad braid down the outside—and, strangely enough, the inside also—of the leg. The boots were eminently sensible and serviceable, and were something like the Red Indian’s moccasin, the uppers being made of two thicknesses of deer hide, which were kept on the foot by means of a narrow tape run through eyelets, while the soles were built up of several thicknesses of felt, amounting in all to about an inch and a half. They had an appearance of great clumsiness, but were, as a matter of fact, extremely light, springy, and comfortable. The thickness of the soles, the springiness of the felt, and the absence of heels made the boots particularly easy to march in, and the soldiers were thus able to cover great distances without feeling fatigue. These men, instead of hiding their pigtails under their head-gear, allowed them to hang down; and some of them, Frobisher observed, were of great length, in some cases falling as low as the back of the knee.

For arms the men carried rifles, of a more modern pattern than those in use in the sister service; in fact, they seemed, so far as Frobisher could see without close inspection, to be Martini weapons of the 1879 pattern—a most serviceable and reliable fire-arm, far superior to the modern small-bore rifle in the opinion of soldiers themselves, as a man-stopper and rush-checker. A long, wicked-looking bayonet with a basket hilt, the back of the blade serrated for three-quarters of its length, like the edge of a large saw, swung from the left hip; and the armoury was completed by a long-hilted, long-bladed knife, or short sword, stuck through the belt which supported the bayonet. They would certainly be a “tough crowd to meet at close quarters”, as Drake murmured to his companion while the men swung past.

The soldiers appeared to be extremely partial to flags, for there seemed to be one to every twenty or thirty men. These were all identical in shape and colour, being triangular and yellow, with the device of a crimson dragon, open-jawed, in the centre.

As soon as the men had passed, Frobisher and Drake continued their walk, and shortly afterward reached the entrance to the dockyard, where they were sharply challenged in Chinese by a sentry. Fortunately, as has been before noted, Drake was an excellent Chinese scholar; and, in answer to his explanation that they were in search of Admiral Wong-lih, the man allowed them to pass, and very civilly directed them where to go, having seen the officer in question pass but a short time previously.

While Drake was obtaining this information Frobisher amused himself by looking around him; and as he did so, he caught sight of a very gorgeously dressed official approaching, attended by several servants, one of whom was holding a large umbrella over his master’s head, while another timidly supported the heavy silken train of the mandarin’s cloak. There was something familiar about this man’s appearance, but the Englishman could not remember whether or not he had really met him before, or whether it was only a resemblance to some other that had attracted his notice. He was a man of very high standing—there could be no doubt about that; for, while he was yet some ten yards away, the sentry abruptly ceased his conversation with Drake, pushed the little skipper aside, and presented arms, his face assuming the fixed expression of a wooden image, touched, Frobisher imagined, with more than a trace of fear. And indeed, upon closer inspection, the official’s countenance itself was seen to be anything but pleasant in expression.

He did not deign to return the sentry’s salute, but stared in a particularly offensive manner at the two Englishmen, finally coming to a halt and putting several questions to the sentry, who replied in tones that positively quavered with apprehension. During this time the personage never took his eyes off the two friends, and Frobisher was on the point of losing his temper when the unknown, with a distinctly perceptible sneer, turned his back rudely and, with a curt command to his waiting attendants, stalked majestically away.

“Who the—?”

“What a—” began Drake and Frobisher simultaneously, then stopped. Frobisher, simmering with rage, continued:

“Drake, ask this sentry, here, who in thunder that insolent bounder is. By Jingo! I have half a mind to go after him and tweak his pigtail soundly. Why, he looked at us as though we were dirt beneath his feet—as though we had no business to be alive. Confound his impudence!”

Drake, fully as indignant, sharply put the desired question, and in reply received a long explanation from the sentry, who constantly sent glances after the mandarin, as though fearful that the latter might overhear what he was saying, even at that distance. Presently he concluded, and Drake translated whilst the two continued their search for Wong-lih.

“The fellow says,” explained Drake, “that the individual who treated us to such a close scrutiny is a very important official indeed. He is one of the members—the chief, in fact—of the Naval Council, also a four-button mandarin, entitled to wear the insignia of the golden peacock. And he is also the captain of the battleshipTing-yuen, the flagship of the Chinese northern fleet, which flies the flag of the celebrated Admiral Ting himself. Last, but by no means least, he holds an important post in the dockyard (though how he manages to carry out the duties of that and those of captain at one and the same time I do not know); while, to cap everything, he is a member of the Chinese Royal Family, a Prince, no less, I assure you. What do you think of that for a tally, eh, Mr Frobisher?”

“Well, I am rather inclined to be sorry for the people who come under the scope of his Naval jurisdiction,” returned Frobisher. “I should hate to serve in any ship of which he was captain. Of course I don’t know the fellow from Adam, but there is something about him that aroused in me a very strong sense of repulsion; he looked to me like an arch-criminal. By the way, did the man tell you what his name was? I feel sure I’ve seen him somewhere before; I remember that repellent, snaky look in his eyes, which gives one the shivers up and down one’s spine.”

“Oh ay,” replied the skipper; “I’d forgotten that. He did mention his tally, as a matter of fact. Let’s see—um—what was it again? Ah, I remember. He called him Prince See—at least, that’s what it sounded like.”

“By Jove! then I remember when I met him last, Drake,” exclaimed Frobisher. “It was when I went with my friend the admiral to the Council meeting at the Navy Building, when I received my commission in the Chinese Navy. Wong-lih mentioned then, that his name was Prince Hsi; and I recollect how very unpleasantly he impressed me then. It appears also that he is a bit of a scoundrel; for in Wong-lih’s absence in Korea the fellow had the audacity to send theChih’ Yuen, the ship I was to be appointed to, to Wei-hai-wei to have her 9.4’s replaced by 12-inch guns, intending to sell the smaller weapons, substitute old, out-of-date twelves, and pocket the difference. But, luckily, Wong-lih met her on the way there, screwed the information out of her captain, and stopped Hsi’s little game. He hates Wong-lih, therefore; and, as I am a friend of the admiral’s, he has honoured me also with a share of his dislike.”

“The low-down, ruffianly swab!” Drake burst out. “But there! that’s just the sort of beast he looks. Well, Mr Frobisher, if, as you say, he dislikes you—and from the way he looked at you I should say that ‘hate’ was the more correct word—I would advise you to keep your weather eye lifting. That sort of man hesitates at very little, and he seems to have the power, as well as the will, to do you a bad turn; so watch out!”

“I will, Drake,” replied Frobisher; “you can rely on that. But here we are at last, I think; this is the place where the sentry said we should find Wong-lih, isn’t it?”

“Ordnance Wharf, third shed along, first door on the far side of the sheer-legs before you come to the fifty-ton crane, he said,” replied Drake; “so I reckon that this is the door. And, by Jiminy! there is the admiral himself, walking beside the other officer in gold lace—a flag-captain, I should say, by his aiguillettes.”

“That’s him, right enough,” agreed Frobisher, and together the two men set off in pursuit, keeping a little in the rear until the two officers should have finished their conversation.

Presently the captain saluted and went off about his own business, and Wong-lih, turning, caught sight of Drake and Frobisher. As his eyes fell upon the latter, he stood stock-still, his jaw dropped, his eyebrows went up, and he looked as though he had seen a ghost.

“Why, Captain Frobisher,” he exclaimed at last, coming forward and holding out his hand, “is it then really you? My dear boy, I am glad to see you again, safe and sound, too, by all appearances. I have been mourning you as dead these three months and more, ever since I got back from the south and learnt of the disaster to theSu-chenon the Hoang-ho. I never expected to see you alive again when I heard that you had fallen into the clutches of the pirates; and I was more grieved than I can tell you—as Captain Drake here can testify—not to be able to send a rescue party after you to try to save, or at least avenge, you. But it was absolutely impossible; I had neither ships nor men to spare. The imminence of our war with Japan, which has been threatening daily for months past, and which is now an all-but-acknowledged fact, would not allow of it. Much as I regretted you, my country naturally was my first consideration.”

“Of course, sir,” agreed Frobisher heartily; “I quite understand. I, too, am delighted to see you once more; indeed, I came down here to the yard on purpose to find you and report myself ready for duty. I hope, sir, that you can still employ me.”

“Employ you?” ejaculated the admiral. “I should rather say we can! Why, I could use hundreds of men like you, if only they existed in China. But come along to my office; we can talk more comfortably there. And you too, Captain Drake, if you will so far honour my poor quarters.”

“With pleasure, with pleasure, my lord—your maj–—er—Sir, I mean,” Drake almost shouted, in his confusion, quite “flabbergasted”, as he himself would have called it, at the Chinaman’s stately, old-world courtesy. And a few minutes later they found themselves in Wong-lih’s comfortably-furnished office, in the ordnance department of the dockyard. Arrived there, and having seated themselves, the admiral ordered refreshments, and immediately plunged into the matter always nearest his heart, now more so than ever.

“Since you have reported, Captain Frobisher,” he commenced, “I take it that you are ready for service at any moment.”

“This instant, if you wish it, sir,” answered Frobisher.

“Thank you, Captain!” said Wong-lih. “That is practically what it amounts to. Your ship, theChih’ Yuen, is here now; and I would like you to take command of her at the earliest possible moment. She is in readiness to go to sea, with stores, ammunition, and men aboard—would be at sea now, as a matter of fact, had we had an officer to whom we dared trust her. And you, sir,” turning to Drake, “are you willing to accept service under my Emperor? If so, I can offer you a berth.”

“Certainly I am, your Highness,” replied Drake heartily. “Only, if I may be so bold as to say so, I should like to be on the same ship as my fr— as Captain Frobisher here.”

“Say ‘friend’, Drake,” broke in Frobisher. “It was on the tip of your tongue, and it is the truth. If a man who saves another’s life is not a friend, I do not know what else you would call him.”

“Quite right, Captain Frobisher,” said Wong-lih. “I like to hear you say that. And as for you, Mr Drake, I can satisfy your wish very easily, as it happens. The acting first lieutenant of Mr Frobisher’s ship is not fitted for the post, but he was the best we had at the time. Now, if you choose, you shall replace him as first lieutenant of theChih’ Yuen, and I will have your commission made out immediately.”

“Nothing would please me better, my lord,” replied Drake, with the utmost enthusiasm; “and I assure you that you—”

“Very well, then,” interrupted the admiral, who was plainly hard pressed for time; “that’s agreed. You shall receive your commission to-night. And now, gentlemen both, although I am so busy that I scarcely know what to do first, I must spare the time to give you a short account of the state of affairs as it stands at present, since it is necessary that you should have the fullest information to enable you—you in particular, Captain Frobisher—to understand exactly how things are with China, and how extremely critical the situation is. When you have heard what I am about to tell you, you will be able to form your own ideas and plans, and so be in a position to work intelligently with your brother captains, and under the admiral who is going to command the northern fleet, to which you will be attached. I may mention that I am to be in command of the southern division, while Admiral Ting will be your chief.

“You remember, of course, Captain Frobisher, that when the rebellion in Korea became so serious that the Government could not deal with it, the Korean Minister asked our assistance, and we gave it, as you saw, at Asan. I also informed you then that Japan had thereupon thought fit to manifest a somewhat unfriendly attitude by sending an unnecessarily strong guard to her Minister at Seoul, coupled with an intimation that she would feel obliged to send a much larger force if the rebellion was not immediately crushed. That, in itself, as we fully realised, amounted very nearly to a threat of war against China, and showed us that Japan was only awaiting her opportunity. We therefore sent a very strongly worded protest against such action to Tokio; and the Japanese thereupon agreed to defer action until it could be seen what turn events in Korea were going to take.

“That was the situation when you were sent in theSu-chenup the Hoang-ho; and those of us who had eyes to see and ears to hear were fully awake to the fact that this concession on the part of Japan was merely a postponement of the evil day. Perhaps she found she was not as fully prepared for war as she had imagined. I know we were not. My colleagues and I, and those of us who had our country’s interests at heart, took warning, therefore, and hurried forward our preparations for war as rapidly as we could.

“Then things remained fairly quiescent until a few days ago. We had practically quelled the Korean rebellion, and matters were resuming their normal status in Korea, the only thing that remained being to institute the reforms which were undoubtedly necessary in that country. The proposals for these were offered to, and accepted by, the Korean Government; and the proposed modifications of policy began to take shape at once. One would therefore have thought that our little campaign in Korea might be said to have terminated satisfactorily, and that Korea might be left to carry out the course of action to which she had pledged herself. In fact, we actually commenced the withdrawal of our troops.

“Then, suddenly, Japan sprang her mine. Our Minister at Seoul was informed by the Japanese representative that Japan did not consider Korea competent to carry out her promises, and that therefore Japan would unite with China to carry out the reforms between them. This, of course, was tantamount to Japan claiming the right to share China’s suzerainty over Korea, a most audacious and—I may almost call it—infamous proposition. It was one to which Japan, of course, knew we would never agree, and we told her so in very plain terms.

“The next thing we heard was that Japan had landed no fewer that five thousand men in Korea, and that they were marching on Seoul; and on the same day the Japanese Minister there forced the situation by tendering two ultimatums—one to Korea, and one to us. The Korean ultimatum required that, within twenty-four hours, Korea should disclaim Chinese suzerainty and pledge herself to allow Japan alone to carry out the reforms in question. The alternative was that, if Korea would not agree, she was to be treated as an enemy to Japan. The ultimatum addressed to us was to the effect that we should, also within the same time, surrender our suzerainty to Japan and relinquish all claims over Korea—the alternative in our case being war!

“Of course we could not possibly send a reply within the time stipulated; and even if we could, we should have refused the proposal with scorn. Our Minister at Seoul did all that man could do to gain time, and sent the news to us immediately. As soon as we heard of Japan’s action we knew that the anticipated moment had come, and that war had become inevitable; we therefore hurried eight thousand men on board transports, and dispatched them at once to Asan. And now comes a circumstance it almost breaks my heart to tell.

“War had not yet been actually declared, you understand, and Japan was still officially awaiting our decision; yet the Japanese fleet, in its full strength, lay in wait for our transports and the convoying men-of-war, and attacked them, sinking the transportKowshing, with over a thousand men on board, and one of our cruisers. The other transports and cruisers escaped and got safely to Asan, where the troops were landed, the ships sheltering under the guns of the fortress. The messenger who brought the news of this treacherous attack informed us that the five thousand Japanese troops which I mentioned just now, having reached Seoul, had been dispatched again immediately, under General Oshima, to Asan to attack the garrison there. They met a small force of our soldiers four days later, at Song-hwan, and, I am sorry to say, defeated them; and the only silver lining to our cloud lies in the surprise those Japanese will receive when they find themselves met at Asan by seven thousand of our men, instead of only the small garrison of the place; for it is not very likely that Oshima’s force, being on the march, will have heard either of the naval battle, or of our successful landing of the majority of our men at Asan.

“The sea fight occurred a week ago, but we only received news of the land battle to-day; and although we have been taken unawares by Japan’s treachery in striking before the declaration of war, we have managed to prepare ourselves pretty well, thanks to the warnings we had that this was coming. Mark me!—Japan shall find to her cost that she cannot insult and ride rough-shod over my country without being called to very strict account. War, Mr Frobisher, will be declared by China against Japan tomorrow, the 1st of August; and I rely upon you, as well as upon all the rest of my officers, to do your utmost to keep command of the sea. The country which secures that will have the other at her mercy; and we ought to be able to secure it, as our Navy is, if anything, a little more powerful than that of Japan, seeing that we have two battleships, as well as cruisers, whereas Japan has only cruisers. That is the situation, gentlemen; and you are now as fully posted as I am with regard to the state of affairs; so strike hard and often for China, when you get the opportunity.”

“We will, sir,” replied both men enthusiastically.

“But,” continued Frobisher, “I trust that our ammunition will prove very different from that supplied me on theSu-chen. You probably heard that the expedition failed for no other reason than that more than half our shells were filled with charcoal instead of gunpowder?”

“Alas! alas! I did,” replied Wong-lih; “and I wish I could promise you that such monstrous iniquities should never occur again. But I cannot. I am doing, and have always done, my best to prevent this shameful tampering with Government property; but what can one man do, amongst so many? You will remember that I told you the mandarins were filling their pockets at the expense of their country; and there is no telling how far their peculations may have extended. I have examined as much ammunition as I have had time for, and I am bound to say that it looks all right; but beyond that I cannot go, for it is impossible to know for certain without opening every cartridge, and at a crisis like this, that would be an impossibility. You must do as I do, and trust that your powder will prove what it pretends to be.”

“Very well, sir,” returned Frobisher, bowing. “It does not seem a very satisfactory state of affairs; but I shall do my best, I assure you.”

“I am certain of it,” returned Wong-lih. “And now, one last word. Sorry as I am to have to acknowledge it, there are traitors everywhere about us, so trust no one but yourself and your admiral. News must have been conveyed to Japan by one of my countrymen to have enabled her fleet to know when the transports sailed, and where to meet them. That man, whoever he is, has Japanese gold in his pocket, and the blood of a thousand of his countrymen on his head.”

Drake and Frobisher exchanged glances involuntarily. The same suspicion had evidently crossed the mind of each simultaneously.

“Do you suspect anyone in particular, sir?” enquired Frobisher. “If so, perhaps you will kindly warn me in which direction to exercise the most care.”

“I am sorry to say that I do suspect someone most strongly,” was Wong-lih’s reply, after a somewhat lengthy pause. “But, unfortunately, he is so highly placed that even I dare not mention his name. If the man so much as guessed that I suspected his treachery, I should be assassinated within twenty-four hours; so, for my country’s sake, I must refrain from telling you something I would give a good deal to be able to do.”

“Someone very highly placed?” repeated Frobisher, drawing his chair a little closer to Wong-lih’s, and lowering his voice. “Should I be very wide of the mark in guessing him to be a prince of the blood royal?”

Wong-lih turned pale, and glanced uneasily round him. “You would be, on the contrary, very near the truth, if my suspicions are correct,” he replied. “That man has played many a scurvy trick in his time; but his other delinquencies are light compared with treachery to his country; and I fear to breathe his name in connection with so horrible a crime. But tell me, how came you to suspect also? Have you any grounds?”

“None,” replied Frobisher. “But I have met the man twice, and on each occasion he has impressed me most unfavourably. I suppose one should take no notice of intuitions; but he certainly looks a thorough scoundrel, to my mind. I shall watch him as carefully as I can.”

“Do,” said the admiral. “You say you have met him twice; I recollect the first time, but do not recall a second. When was it?”

“Not an hour ago, sir,” returned Frobisher. “I met him, with his retinue, just leaving the dockyard. He honoured me so far as to treat me to a very impertinent scrutiny as he passed.”

“Leaving the dockyard!” echoed Wong-lih. “I did not see him about here. He ought to be on board his ship, theTing Yuen, by rights, for she is quite ready for sea; and I know Admiral Ting is only too eager to take his fleet out to look for the enemy. Indeed, as soon as you are aboard theChih’ Yuenand have hoisted your flag, he is likely to make the signal to proceed to sea. No; that man had no business here. I wonder what he was doing.”

Acting upon Wong-lih’s hint that the interview had better terminate, Frobisher and Drake took their leave of the kindly admiral, and went back into the city to transact some necessary business before going on board. This included securing uniforms, and suits of mufti, toilet articles, and, in fact, personal requisites of every kind, of which both men had been destitute for several months past. This business having been transacted, their new possessions were packed and sent to the ship, and Frobisher and Drake followed immediately afterward. Arrived on board, the former had his commission read by the interpreter (for it was, of course, written in Chinese script), and at last, after many strange vicissitudes, found himself standing on his own quarterdeck, captain of the Chinese cruiserChih’ Yuen.

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