ransports were to
be destroyed, or captured, as circumstances should decide. This ought,
he added, to be an easy task for the _Chih' Yuen_; and it would prove a
very adequate reprisal for the sinking of the transport _Kowshing_ and
some of her attendant ships by the Japanese squadron some weeks
previously.

This was just the kind of commission that appealed to Frobisher, who had
still a great deal of the boy left in him; there was nothing that he
liked better than to be able to get away on special service. He
therefore assured Ting that he would return on board, hurry his
preparations forward, and get away at the very earliest moment.

The morning but one following, therefore, found him steaming out of the
harbour of Wei-hai-wei, with Drake, almost as eager as himself, standing
on the bridge beside him. There had been very little prospect of active
service for either of them until Wong-lih could join forces with the
northern fleet, and that might possibly not be for some time; therefore
both men were in the highest spirits at the thought of getting to
hand-grips with the enemy again so quickly, and it was with a light
heart indeed that the young captain ordered the admiral's salute to be
fired as the _Chih' Yuen_ swept seaward out of the harbour.

The distance from Wei-hai-wei to Kilung, at the north end of Formosa, is
close upon a thousand miles, and Frobisher reckoned that it would take
him some seventy hours to do the trip. On the other hand, the distance
from the nearest Japanese port, Nagasaki, to the same spot was only
about seven hundred miles; therefore if the proposed invading expedition
sailed at the time when the _Chih' Yuen_ left Wei-hai-wei, the
probability was that the Japanese would be there first, in which case
his task would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Once let
the soldiers get ashore, and he, with his small force, would be quite
unable to turn them out. It was only by meeting the transports and
gunboats at sea that he could hope for success; and he did not spare
coal, or his engineers' and stokers' feelings, in his eagerness to reach
the scene first. Of course, there was always the possibility that,
believing their plan a secret, the enemy would not greatly hurry to get
to Kilung; but Frobisher was not taking any chances, and he drove his
ship through the short, choppy seas at the full power of her engines.

He had an additional incentive to haste in the aspect of the sea and