Chapter XIII

The journey up-river was a very tedious one, and promised to be longer than Ping Wang had expected, for, as soon as darkness came up, the boat was moored for the night near a riverside village. The boatman declared, in a very humble tone, that he dared not go any further until daybreak for fear of being attacked by pirates.

On the following morning, at daybreak, the journey was resumed, but before the travellers had covered two miles, while the mist was still hanging over the river, Ping Wang noticed a boat rapidly overtaking them. It was a long, narrow craft, paddled by eight men. Another man knelt in the bows, and two more stood up in the stern. The latter were armed with old-fashioned rifles.

'Pirates!' the boat-owner shouted in terror when he had glanced at the pursuers, and instantly there was a panic among his men. One of them dived into the river and swam towards the bank; but the other three, who could not swim, ceased rowing, and hid themselves among the cargo.

"Fred took aim and fired."

'Make the cowards row,' Ping Wang commanded the boat-owner, but without any result, for the man was himself terror-stricken.

'Hasn't the wretched man got any weapons aboard?' Charlie said aloud.

Ping Wang translated Charlie's question, and the boat-owner answered promptly, 'Your miserable slave has one gun, which does not belong to him. He is taking it to a mandarin. Your wretched servant does not know where it was bought.'

'Never mind about that,' Ping Wang declared, guessing at once that the fellow had a rifle which had been stolen from some European. 'Bring it here at once.'

The boat-owner produced quickly a long bundle of cloth, and from the middle of it pulled out a rifle.

'A Lee-Metford,' Fred exclaimed, as he snatched the rifle out of the man's hand. 'Where is the ammunition?'

'Here it is,' Ping Wang said, as he burst open a box and displayed several packets of cartridges.

'That is splendid,' Fred declared, as he opened a packet. Like many London medical students, he had become a Volunteer, and was, moreover, a good shot. Having placed the open packet of cartridges beside him, he took up the rifle, and, after loading it, raised it to his shoulder, but did not yet fire. 'I won't shoot,' he said, 'until I am sure they mean to attack us.'

He had not long to wait before receiving proof of the pirates' intention. The boat was approaching fast, and when it was about a hundred yards from them, the pirates fired. Their rifles made a tremendous noise, and the travellers' boat was hit about an inch above water.

'That is enough,' Fred declared, and, placing his left foot on a seat and resting his left elbow on his knee, he took aim and fired.

'Good shot, Fred!' Charlie cried, as one of the pirates who had fired on them fell forward, wounded, among his comrades. The pirates had evidently not expected such a reception, and the result of Fred's shot filled them with dismay. They ceased rowing, and took counsel for a few moments.

'Look out, Fred,' Charlie said, 'there is a man in the bow with a breechloader. He's aiming at you.'

Just as he spoke the man fired, and the bullet whizzed perilously near to Fred's head.

'Get under cover,' Charlie begged, but Fred replied calmly, 'I can do best where I am.'

Again he fired, and this time he smashed the blade of an oar.

Finding that no one was hit by that shot, the pirates took courage, and the three men with guns fired simultaneously, but without doing any damage.

'I'll give them the magazine,' Fred said, and fired eight times in quick succession. How many men he hit they never knew. Charlie and Ping Wang saw five men throw up their arms, while a sixth, who fell overboard, made such frantic efforts to save himself that the boat capsized.

'Now row,' Ping Wang shouted, and, pulling the three boatmen from their hiding-places, pushed them back to their oars. Seeing that all danger was gone, the men smiled happily as they resumed work, and were not at all ashamed of their recent cowardice.

Charlie turned to his brother. 'Fred, I am awfully proud of you—you have saved our lives! I wish I had joined the Volunteers. But, I say,' he continued, 'put on your goggles, or the boatmen will see that you are not a Chinaman.'

'They must have found that out some minutes ago,' Fred answered, 'for we have been talking ever since we saw the pirates.'

'Perhaps they did not notice it,' Ping Wang suggested; but he soon discovered that this was not the case.

While Fred, from force of habit, was cleaning the rifle after using it, the boat-owner approached the travellers, and said to Ping Wang: 'The foreigner shoots very straight in spite of his sore eyes.'

'He has saved your life,' Ping Wang replied, sharply. 'If he had not shot the pirates, they would have killed all of us.'

'That is true, honourable brother. I and my men are full of gratitude.'

'Then you must all vow not to tell any one that he is a foreigner.'

The boatman considered the matter for a few moments. 'We will promise. We will take an oath,' he declared at length. He lighted a piece of paper, and, as it burned to ashes, he expressed the hope that, if he told any one that the two men with goggles were foreigners, he might also be totally destroyed by fire. The other men took the oath in the same fashion.

'Will they keep it?' Charlie inquired, when Ping Wang had made known to Fred and him the nature of the oath.

'I cannot be sure of it,' Ping Wang said.

'I will keep this rifle until we reach the end of our river-trip,' Fred declared.

Shortly after the sun had set, the boat arrived at the place where Ping Wang had decided to land.

'The foreigners and I will not land until daybreak,' he said to the boat-owner. 'Moor the boat. It will be safer for us to begin our journey by daylight,' Ping Wang said to Charlie and Fred, after telling them that they were to remain on board until the morning. 'I have not travelled by the road we are going to take since I was a small boy, and consequently it is not familiar to me. There is another road which leads to Kwang-ngan, but it is more frequented than the one by which we are to travel. Our road is a round-about one, and rarely used since the shorter road has been made. I hope that we shall meet very few people.'

'How far shall we have to walk before we reach the first village?' Charlie asked.

'About five miles; and Kwang-ngan is six miles beyond that.'

'Then we shall be there to-morrow night, I suppose?'

'I hope so. By-the-bye, do you feel hungry?'

'Very,' Charlie answered, speaking for Fred as well as for himself.

'Then I'll ask the boat-owner to sell us a couple of ducks I know he has on board.'

Ping Wang returned to his friends presently, holding in his hands two well-cooked ducks.

'We shall soon polish these off,' Charlie said, as he, Fred, and Ping Wang took their seats under the awning, with the ducks on a big wooden plate on their knees.

'Your appetite always was enormous,' Fred remarked. 'But I was thinking whether we ought not to save one of them. Ping Wang, shall we have any difficulty in obtaining food to-morrow?'

'I don't think so,' Ping Wang replied. 'However, it would be a good thing to save one of the birds until the morning, so that we may have a good meal to start the day.'

One duck was therefore kept, and the other eaten. Ten minutes after the meal, Charlie, Fred, and Ping Wang were sound asleep, with the duck near them on the wooden dish in which it had been served up. When they awoke at daybreak the dish was where they had left it, but the duck had disappeared.

'This is serious,' Ping Wang said. 'One of the boatmen must have stolen it. I will ask them.'

He did so; but the men promptly vowed that they had not stolen the duck. They did not appear at all surprised, however, when the accusation was made; and Ping Wang concluded that they were not speaking the truth.

'As you have stolen the duck,' Ping Wang continued, sternly, 'you must return to me the money which I gave for it.'

'Would my honourable brother rob his slave?' the boat-owner asked, in alarm.

'Yes. If you cannot give me the duck, I must have back the price I paid for it. If you cannot give me the money, I will keep the rifle which the foreigner is holding.'

This decision alarmed the boat-owner. 'Honourable brother,' he said, after a few moments' silence, 'I will search for the duck: perhaps it has rolled off the dish.'

He searched in what appeared to Ping Wang to be very unlikely places, and found the missing dainty in a basket on top of the pile of cargo.

'The rifle shall be given you,' said Ping Wang, and then turned to speak to Charlie and Fred. 'We had better breakfast on shore,' he said; 'let us land at once.'

Ping Wang handed over the Lee-Metford to the boat-owner, and the three travellers stepped ashore, thoroughly glad to get out of the boat.

(Continued on page 317.)