you fancied it all."

"Well, I couldn't help that, could I? You wait till you get your wound,
and then see how you'll begin to fancy all sorts of things. I say,
though, Smithy's getting right pretty quick. The doctor's pitched him
over. I should have sent him back to his duty before, if I'd been old
Physic. He was all right yesterday."

"How do you know?"

"Because he was so nasty tempered. Nothing was good enough for him."

"Oh, come, I like that," cried Smith, who overheard him. "Why, I was as
patient as could be; I appeal to the Poet. Did I ever go fussing about
telling people I was wounded by a poisoned knife?"

"No," I said; "you were both magnificent specimens of brave young
midshipmen, and behaved splendidly."

"Oh, did we?" cried Barkins. "Look here, Blacksmith, we'll remember
this, and as soon as we're strong enough we'll punch his head."

"Agreed. He's been growing as cocky as a bantam since we've been ill.
We must take him down."

"Why, what for?" I cried.

"Making game of your betters. Sarce, as Tom Jecks calls it."

We had something else to think of three days later, and in the
excitement both my messmates forgot their wounds, save when some quick
movement gave them a reminder that even the healing of a clean cut in
healthy flesh takes time.

For we overhauled a suspicious-looking, fast-sailing junk, which paid no
heed to our signals, but was brought to after a long chase, and every
man on board was chuckling and thinking about prize-money.

But when she was boarded, with Ching duly established as interpreter,
and all notion of returning to the "fancee shop" put aside for the
present, the junk turned out to be a peaceful trader trying to make her
escape from the pursuit of pirates, as we were considered to be.

Ching soon learned the cause of the captain's alarm. The day before he
had come upon a junk similar to his own, with the crew lying murdered on
board, and, judging from appearances, the wretches who had plundered her
could not have gone long.

Mr Brooke was the officer in charge of the boat, and he told Ching to
ask the master of the junk whether he had seen any signs of the pirates.

The man eagerly replied that he had seen three fast boats entering the
Ayshong river, some thirty miles north of where we then were, and as
soon as he found that we really were the boat's crew of a ship working
for the protection of the shipping trade, his joy and excitement were
without