robbers. 'Tisn't good to part the Chinaman from his money if he is the
stronger party. We need have been desperate indeed to go thieving in
such weather, but what could these beggars know of us? So, without
thinking of it twice, I got the hands away in a jiffy. Our work was
done--that the old man had set his heart on. We cleared out without
staying to inquire how they felt. I am convinced that if they had not
been so unmercifully shaken, and afraid--each individual one of them
--to stand up, we would have been torn to pieces. Oh! It was pretty
complete, I can tell you; and you may run to and fro across the Pond to
the end of time before you find yourself with such a job on your hands."

After this he alluded professionally to the damage done to the ship, and
went on thus:

"It was when the weather quieted down that the situation became
confoundedly delicate. It wasn't made any better by us having been
lately transferred to the Siamese flag; though the skipper can't see
that it makes any difference--'as long as we are on board'--he says.
There are feelings that this man simply hasn't got--and there's an end
of it. You might just as well try to make a bedpost understand. But
apart from this it is an infernally lonely state for a ship to be going
about the China seas with no proper consuls, not even a gunboat of her
own anywhere, nor a body to go to in case of some trouble.

"My notion was to keep these Johnnies under hatches for another fifteen
hours or so; as we weren't much farther than that from Fu-chau. We would
find there, most likely, some sort of a man-of-war, and once under
her guns we were safe enough; for surely any skipper of a
man-of-war--English, French or Dutch--would see white men through as
far as row on board goes. We could get rid of them and their money