ittle man's throat, if little man got any ting worth having."

"Pleasant," remarked Jack; "I would rather be an English ploughman than
a Chinese mandarin."

While the midshipmen were talking to Jos, Captain Fi Tan came up, and
intimated to the latter that he should expect his prisoners to take an
active part in the battle, and to assist in defending the junk.

"A cool request," remarked Jack; "however, as fight we must probably to
defend our own lives and those of the two ladies, we may as well make a
virtue of necessity. You agree with me, Murray, and so do you. Captain
and Mr Hudson? Well, then, Jos, tell Captain Fi Tan that we will fight
for him, but that he must give us any recompense we may demand."

Jos spoke to the pirate captain, and immediately said that he would
agree to their terms.

"That's to say, he'll take the fighting out of us first, and then, if he
finds it convenient, change his mind," remarked Captain Willock. "I
know the way of the Chinese. You cannot trust them."

"Perhaps when we have taught them to trust us they may learn to be
trustworthy themselves," observed Murray; "besides, these fellows are
professed pirates. What can you expect of them?"

"They are all alike, all alike; all rogues and vagabonds together,"
answered the skipper.

After this somewhat sweeping condemnation of a whole people, their
conversation was interrupted by the pirates bringing them a heap of
pistols, daggers, knives, and swords, with which to cover their persons
in Chinese fashion to be ready for battle. Darkness now came on, and in
a short time lights were seen in a pretty dense line, reaching across
the entrance of the harbour. The dark outlines of a fleet of junks soon
after this appeared through the gloom, and forthwith gongs and cymbals
began to clash, and shrieks and shouts ascended, and guns, and jingalls,
and pistols went off, while fire-balls, and rockets, and stink-pots, and
other Chinese devices for warfare, filled the air, and truly made "night
hideous."

CHAPTER THIRTY.

AN ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE.

Rogers and Murray, and their companions, watched with considerable
anxiety the approach of the fresh horde of pirates. From the number of
lights they showed, and the noise they made, it was very evident that
their fleet was much more powerful than the one which had captured the
brig.

"If we were on shore now, I should little care if the result of the
fight was like that of the two Kilkenny