nkpots down through the cabin
skylight, and half-smothered them," said Barkins excitedly.

"I daresay they did," I replied thoughtfully, "for I did see one of the
lockers all scorched and burned just by the deck. Yes, it all seemed to
come to me, and I felt as if I could see all the fighting, with the
Chinamen hacking and chopping at them with their long swords, the same
as those brutes did at us; and all those poor fellows, who were quietly
going about their business, homeward bound with their cargo, must have
had friends, wives or mothers or children; and it gets horrible when you
think of how they must have been in despair, knowing that those wretches
would have no mercy on them."

"Yes, but how it must have made 'em fight," cried Smith. "I think I
could have done something at a time like that."

"Yes, it would make any fellow fight; even you, Gnat."

"I suppose so," I said, "for it made me feel as if there wasn't any room
in the world for such people."

"There ain't," said Barkins. "Oh, if our chaps could only get a good go
at 'em!"

"And then I felt," I went on, "as if it couldn't all be real, and that
it was impossible that there could be such wretches on the face of the
earth, ready to kill people for the sake of a bit of plunder."

"But it's just precious possible enough," said Smith slowly. "Why, out
here in China they do anything."

"Right," said Barkins; "and I hope the skipper will pay them in their
own coin. My! how she burns."

"Yes," assented Smith, as the barque, after smouldering so long, now
blazed, as if eager to clear away all traces of the horrible tragedy.

"You'll recollect all about that cabin, Gnat, if we do get at the
beggars--won't you?"

"Recollect?" I said, with a shiver; "I shall never be able to forget
it."

Then we relapsed into silence, and stood resting our arms over the
bulwarks, gazing at the distant fire, in which I could picture plainly
all the horrors and suggestions of the wrecked cabin. I even seemed to
see the yellow-faced wretches, all smeared with blood, dragging their
victims to the stern windows. And my imagination then ran riot for a
time, as I fancied I saw them seizing men not half-dead, but making a
feeble struggle for their lives, and begging in agonising tones for
mercy, but only to be struck again, and pitched out into the sea.

I fancy that I must have been growing half hysterical as the scene grew
and grew before me, till I had pictured one p