splash on either side, and away we went among
the hundreds of native boats of all kinds going up and down the river,
and onward toward the crowded city, with its pagodas, towers, and
ornamental gateways glittering in the morning sunshine, and looking
wonderfully attractive to us prisoners, out for the day.

"Don't speak aloud," I whispered to Smith, who was gathering himself up
for an oration respecting the first lieutenant's tyranny.

"Why not?"

"Because the men are listening, and one of 'em may report what you say."

"He'd better," said Smith defiantly. "I'm not afraid to speak. It was
all out of his niggling meddlesomeness, so as to show off before the
men." But all the same he spoke in a low voice that could only be heard
by our companion who held the lines.

"There, never mind all that bother," cried Barkins. "I say, how would
you like to live in one of those house-boats?"

"I call it pretty good cheek of the pigtailed humbugs to set up
house-boats," cried Smith. "They imitate us in everything."

"And we don't imitate them in anything, eh?" said Barkins. "Hi! look
out, old Chin-chin, or we shall run you down," he shouted to a man in a
sampan.

"My! what a hat!" cried Smith. "Why, it would do for an umbrella.
Port, Barkins."

"All right; I won't sink him. Pull away, my lads."

"I say," I cried, as we rowed by an enormous junk, with high poop and
stern painted with scarlet and gold dragons, whose eyes served for
hawseholes; "think she's a pirate?"

"No," said Barkins, giving a look up at the clumsy rig, with the huge
matting-sails; "it's a tea-boat."

As she glided away from us, with her crew collected astern, to climb up
and watch us, grinning and making derisive gestures, Barkins suddenly
swung round the telescope, slipped the strap over his head, adjusted it
to the proper focus, as marked by a line scratched with the point of a
penknife, and raised it to his eye, when, to my astonishment, I saw all
the Chinamen drop down out of sight.

"Yes, she's a tea-boat," said Double B decisively, "and heavily laden.
I wish she had pirates on board."

"Why?" cried Smith. "They'd kill all the crew."

"And then we should kill them, make a prize of the junk, and have a lot
of tin to share. Bother this glass, though! I wish I hadn't brought
it."

"Why?" said Smith; "we shall have some good views from up yonder, when
we get to the hills at the back of the town."

"Ain't got there yet. It's so hea