United States or Fiji ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Encouraged by the cessation of fire from the Su-chen, the junks had redoubled their own, and the gunboat was rapidly becoming as riddled as a sieve, while men were falling fast in every direction.
The task was finished at last, and that afternoon the Su-chen dipped her ensign to the San-chau, on board of which Admiral Wong-lih had his quarters, steamed down the river Pei-ho, past the Taku forts at its mouth, and out into the open sea on her way to the mouth of the Hoang-ho, some three hundred miles up which lay the village of Tchen-voun-hien, at or near which the pirates' lair was said to be situated.
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 the Su-chen on the Hoang-ho.
What would have happened if he had not had the forethought to examine superficially the contents of the magazine at Tien-tsin, and order a fresh supply on his own responsibility, he hardly dared to think. There would undoubtedly have been not a single cartridge capable of being discharged, and the Su-chen and her crew would by this time undoubtedly have been the prize of the pirates.
I wish you to take command of the gunboat Su-chen, and proceed in her to this place. You will investigate the matter thoroughly; and, if the stories are anything approaching truth, you will hunt down that band of pirates, and destroy them and their head-quarters. No quarter must be shown, Mr Frobisher; those criminals must be dealt with severely.
The Su-chen would then be free to turn her entire attention to the fort. She would anchor in the berth vacated by the junks, and endeavour to silence the fire of the fort with her remaining guns. If this could be done, a landing-party was to be thrown ashore who would carry with them a number of powder-bags for blowing in the gates; after which the idea was to enter the fort and carry it by storm.
At last, so disgusted did Frobisher become at all this delay and prevarication that he went back to the Su-chen, selected some twenty of the strongest members of his crew, and himself took them up to the magazine with a number of hand-wagons which he had collected, under much voluble protest, en route.
During the hundred-mile run across the gulf of Chi-lih, Frobisher set his men to clean ship thoroughly, overhaul and polish the guns, and make things in general a little more shipshape than they had been since the time when the Su-chen left her builders' hands on the Thames.
By this time the Su-chen had approached to within a distance of about a mile from the fort and the small bight in the river, inside which lay the five junks, and Frobisher determined to try a sighting shot at the building, to accustom the men to a changing range.
The Englishman was at the head of his men, plying his cutlass with terrible effect, when he felt a slight jar, and looked round just in time to see a man on board the Su-chen throw off the last grapnel, and the gunboat begin to gather sternway down the stream. He uttered a shout of rage, and strove to hew his way to the side of the junk; but even as he did so, he realised that he was too late.
Word Of The Day