bisher had intended.

It was severe enough, however, to make the _Yoshino_ shiver from stem to
stern, from truck to keelson; and as the _Chih' Yuen_ drove past,
Frobisher saw that he had sliced a great gash in her port quarter nearly
down to the water-line, and dismounted both the guns in her after
turret. The attempt had not entirely succeeded, but it had done a great
deal of damage, and with that he had to be content.

Then, as Frobisher circled his ship round to come into action again, he
saw something that made him gasp with astonishment and apprehension.
There was a fight of some sort going on upon the deck of the Chinese
flagship herself! What on earth could it mean? She had not been close
enough to any of the enemy's ships to enable them to board her, and,
moreover, they were Chinese sailors, not Japanese, who were fighting.
What could possibly have happened? The seamen on board were entirely
devoted to their admiral, and if any mutiny had arisen it must be
through the machinations of some other person, some traitor who had
seized this opportunity to--

By Jove, he had it! All his old suspicions came thronging into his mind
in an instant, and in that same instant he believed he could make a very
good guess at what had occurred. Of course it was that scoundrel,
Prince Hsi, who was at the bottom of the mischief; Frobisher seemed to
know it instinctively. He also recollected the numerous occasions on
which his Highness had acted in an extremely suspicious manner, to say
the least; and it did not take him long to guess that he was now
beholding the consummation of a plot up to which Hsi had been leading
for some considerable time past. But what had happened to Admiral Ting,
he wondered, that Prince Hsi should have matters all in his own hands?
Frobisher knew that so long as the gallant admiral was alive, or
conscious, he would never permit his command to be taken from him thus;
and his heart fell, for he feared that the traitor, to attain his
detestable ends, must first have killed the brave old man.

Well, Frobisher vowed to himself, the traitor should not succeed in his
scheme, whatever it might be, even though he had to board the _Ting
Yuen_ himself, and slay Prince Hsi with his own hands, to avenge the
death of the admiral.

And then he saw what it was that the traitor prince intended. The
commotion on the deck of the flagship had ceased, the mutineers having
either slain or driven overboard all tho