ently a person of authority, shouted out some
loud order or other, which sounded more like a pig grunting under a gate
than any language I had previously heard spoken, there being a strong
swinish flavour in the Chinese lingo, as about their fields, which Ned
Anstruther and I had smelt coming along on our unlucky walk!

He had evidently given some order to the attendants; for, no sooner had
he finished grunting than a couple of rum things somewhat like the
palanquins I had seen when at Bombay, were brought in and put down in
front of us.

They were, really, cages made of bamboo, and which only criminals are
confined in, as I afterwards found out.

Into these, Ned and I were thrust separately, one in each.

We were then lifted up by the poles attached to our novel sort of
conveyance, two men carrying mine and two more lifting Ned's "trap"--I
know I felt very much like what a mouse does when caught in one, for I
was caged with a vengeance--they trotted off with us, through a back
door, and then along a wide, country road, I knew not whither!

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

"ONE PIECEE CAN DO!"

We could not talk together, for the very good reason that our mouths
were gagged, nor could we see each other now, poor consolation as that
would have been; although possibly a friendly wink from Ned might have
cheered me up a bit under the circumstances, the idea preying on my mind
that it was owing to my fault in persuading him to enter into the
treacherous ambuscade that we had been thus entrapped.

But whatever Anstruther's reflections might have been I had no means of
knowing, as our bearers trotted onwards with his bamboo palanquin
abreast of mine, both of our craft making good headway; the artful,
yellow-hatted old scoundrel who had so successfully planned our capture
bringing up the rear of the procession and grunting away at a fine rate
behind.

He was mounted on a diminutive pony, which he straddled in a clumsy
fashion, his legs almost touching the ground; while a parasol he held
aloft in one hand nearly poked my eyes out when he came up every now and
then alongside my cage, to see that I was there all right and had not
wriggled out of my bonds since his last inspection.

If I could not speak, like the monkeys in the Zoological Gardens, I
thought the more; all sorts of curious fancies continually coming into
my head as we were thus borne along.

For one thing, I was not in the least frightened about my fate; for, a