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Quen-lung had certainly been right when he had prophesied disaster as the result of attacking the "Unconquerable" as Frobisher afterwards found was indeed the name of the sect to which the pirates belonged although what reason the man had had for being so sure, the young Englishman was utterly unable to guess.
The interpreter promised by Wong-lih had duly presented himself to Frobisher on board the San-chan that morning, and the Englishman very soon began to find the man's services invaluable. With his assistance, the Su-chen was easily located, and Frobisher at once boarded her and made himself known, and read his commission to her officers and crew through the medium of Quen-lung, the interpreter.
He had never beheld anything like it in his life, so he turned to Quen-lung, who was, as usual, standing alongside him, and, handing him the telescope, told him to take a look at the piece of bunting and say what the decoration on the flag was intended to represent.
Frobisher determined to go and find him, when he could spare a moment or two from the matter in hand, bring him up on deck, and thus teach him, by the most practical of methods, how to stand fire without flinching. At present, however, he had more than enough to occupy him, without thinking of Quen-lung.
I am sure that, if the admiral had known who the people were whom he wants to destroy, he would never have sent the expedition at all." Frobisher looked the man up and down for a few seconds, as though he thought that the fellow's mind had given way. Then he said, sternly: "What child's talk is this, Quen-lung? Do I hear a man speaking, or is it a boy, frightened by a bogy?
This he was obliged to do by signs, for at the beginning of the battle Quen-lung had vanished, and Frobisher was unable to catch a glimpse of him anywhere.
He was something of the same build as Ling; but Ling, he knew, was dead, for he had seen the man's body. Then, again, he might pass at a distance for Quen-lung, the interpreter; but from what Frobisher had already seen of that person, he did not for a moment believe that Quen-lung was at all the kind of man to risk his skin on a midnight excursion to a pirate stronghold.
That will soon show those fellows that we mean business. Where's their invulnerability now, Quen-lung eh?"
This did not at all satisfy his requirements; for he found that, although there appeared to be plenty of small-arm ammunition, there was very little belonging to the machine-guns and the guns in the batteries; so, taking Quen-lung with him, he made his way to the magazines, taking his requisition book with him in his pocket.
Quen-lung obediently placed the eyepiece to his eye, and a few seconds later Frobisher observed the man turn pale and stagger backward, almost dropping the telescope as he did so. The man's eyes were dilated, his face turned the colour of putty; his lower lip had dropped, and his hands were trembling as though palsied.
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