rates whom he was
going to exterminate; for he felt certain that the dark stains were not
those of fire, but of blood.

As soon as the unwieldy craft, which was progressing solely by the force
of the current, approached to within a quarter of a mile of the
_Sit-chen_, Frobisher rang his engines to half-speed, so that the
gunboat barely made headway against the current, and thus awaited the
junk's arrival. The gunboat was skilfully manoeuvred alongside her, and
the crew, with ropes and grapnels, soon secured her, and assisted the
two men who formed her sole complement up on deck. Here Frobisher,
after giving them some refreshment, of which they were plainly in great
need, questioned them through the interpreter as to the cause of their
present condition.

It was precisely as he had expected. The junk had, it seemed, sailed a
few days previously from Tchen-tcheou, a town about six hundred miles
from the mouth of the river, with a valuable cargo of sandalwood
intended for Tien-tsin; but on passing the spot where the old bed of the
river used to lie before the channel was diverted, she had been attacked
by no fewer than five large and heavily-armed junks, crowded with men.
Before the crew could even place themselves in a position for defence,
the junk had been seized and the men cut to pieces by the ruthless
pirates. The two men standing on the _Su-chen's_ deck had escaped as by
a miracle, for, after taking all her cargo out of the junk and throwing
dead and wounded overboard, the leader of the pirates had indulged his
humour by binding the two survivors and laying them on the deck,
afterwards firing the junk and setting her adrift. The men had secured
their freedom by one of them gnawing the other's bonds loose, and they
had then managed to extinguish the fire.

But--would not the honourable captain take his ship up the river, and
wipe the pirates out, lock, stock, and barrel? Frobisher informed them
that such was his intention; and, after asking the two men whether they
would accompany him as guides, and receiving their assurance that they
desired nothing better, he set the junk adrift again, since she was
absolutely useless, and continued his journey.

At nine o'clock the next morning one of the two new men, who had been
looking keenly ahead for a few moments, came up to Frobisher and pointed
out what appeared to be a large, square, stone-built castle, or fort,
standing some distance back from the river bank, u