the river was passed with ease. But there were many
reminders, in the shape of broken spars, and in some cases fragments of
hulls, projecting out of the water, to show that the sea was not always
in so gentle a mood, and that many other captains had been less
fortunate. The bar at the mouth of the Hoang-ho is indeed one vast
graveyard, both of men and ships.

Frobisher anchored a few miles up the river, and spent a whole day
exercising his men at cutlass and small-arm drill, to smarten them up a
little and prepare them as far as possible for the cut-and-thrust work
which, he felt sure, the task of exterminating the pirates would
ultimately involve. Early on the following morning the voyage upstream
was continued, the _Su-chen_ making not more than about six knots an
hour against the strong current, the result, evidently, of heavy rains
up-country, for the river--well named the "Yellow River"--was thick and
turbid with mud, which had been washed off the surface of the land by
the floods.

Mile after mile the _Su-chen_ crept along, and the low, flat,
uninteresting banks slipped gradually astern. A few junks were passed,
but they were all too far away for Frobisher to communicate with them,
as they were well in under the land, while the gunboat was obliged, on
account of her draught, to keep more or less in the centre of the river.

One afternoon, however, there came from the man whom Frobisher had
posted in the foretop, to give warning of rocks or shoals, a shout that
there was a dismasted junk about a mile ahead which appeared to be
trying to intercept the gunboat. She seemed, the look-out reported, to
have been on fire, as well as having lost her mast, for he could plainly
make out through his telescope the black patches where her deck and
bulwarks had been charred. There were only two men on deck, he added,
and these men were doing all they could to attract attention, waving
something--he could not quite make out what--above their heads, and
leaping about excitedly. There were other dark-coloured patches about
the deck, but at that distance it was not possible to say whether they
were the result of fire, or of something else. Frobisher, however, who
had carefully listened to a report of the details from the interpreter,
had the conviction that there had been some happening on board that junk
other than that of mere fire, and that he was shortly to receive
evidence with his own eyes of the activities of the pi