plenty of water, and the
business is urgent. You'll have to be content with a drink and a pull
at your waistbelts."

"All right, sir," said the coxswain; "what's good enough for the
orficers is good enough for us. We won't grumble, eh, mates?"

There was a low growl here, but not of discontent.

"Then in another five minutes, if our Celestial friend does not come
back, we shall start. I'll give him that time."

"Beg pardon, sir; they're a siggling of us."

"Signalling! who are?"

"The Chinees, sir."

"Yes, look," I said; for, after a good deal of talking and shouting, one
man was standing close at the edge of the landing-place, and beckoning
to us to come closer in.

"Likely," I heard one of our men whisper. "Ducks."

"Eh?" said another.

"Dill, dill, dill; will yer come and be killed?"

"What do they want, Herrick? To inveigle us ashore?"

"I know, sir for the reason of their excitement now came to me like a
flash, and I wondered that I had not thought of it before."

"Well, then. Speak out if you do know, my lad."

"That's it, sir. We've got a boat they know, and they think we're
stealing it."

"Tut, tut, tut. Of course. That explains it. Very sorry, my friends,
but we cannot spare it yet. You shall have her back and be paid for the
use of it, when we've done with her."

The shouts, gesticulations, and general excitement increased, two men
now beckoning imperiously, and it was evident that they were ordering us
to come to the landing-place at once.

"No, my friends," said Mr Brooke, "we are not coming ashore. We know
your gentle nature too well. But Ching is not coming, Herrick, so we'll
heave up the grapnel and be off."

The crowd was now dense, and the excitement still increasing, but the
moment they saw our coxswain, in obedience to an order given by Mr
Brooke--in spite of an appealing look, and a request for another ten
minutes--begin to haul up the rough grapnel, the noise ashore was
hushed, and the gesticulations ceased.

"Five minutes more, Mr Brooke," I whispered; "I feel sure that Ching
will come."

"Silence, sir," he said coldly. "It is only what I expected. The man
knows he is found out."

By this time the boat was hauled up over the grapnel, and I shrank away
in despair, feeling bitterly disappointed at Ching's non-appearance, but
full of confidence in him--faith the stronger for an intense desire to
make up to the man for misjudging him before.

Then the grapn