When, therefore, about nine o’clock that night—at which time the decks were packed with cases that had been got up from below in readiness to be sent ashore in the boats—there came from the look-out whom Drake, as a precautionary measure, had posted in the foretop a hail of “Ho! boat ahoy! What do you want?” every man on deck jumped as though he had been shot, so little was any interruption of any sort expected.
Drake and Frobisher darted to the side together, as though moved by the same impulse, and leant over the bulwarks, peering into the darkness and listening intently for any sound of oars that should enable them to discover the whereabouts of the approaching craft.
Whoever the occupant of the boat might be, he was evidently neither an enemy nor a spy; for hardly had the challenge left the seaman’s mouth when the reply came out of the darkness, in a thin, high-pitched, timid voice: “All alightee; all alightee; it only me.”
“And who the mischief may ‘only me’ be?” growled Drake, who had been very considerably startled, and therefore felt rather annoyed with himself.
“Sh, sh! mastel,” urged the voice; “you makee not so muchee shout; it vely dangelous. Thlow me lope, so I climb up; I got big piecee news for mastel.” And the sound of muffled oars was again heard, this time evidently close to the ship.
“H’m!” muttered Drake under his breath to Frobisher; “I don’t much like the look of this. It seems as though something had miscarried, for this fellow to come out here at this time of night, with a ‘big piecee news’. I suppose there is no doubt the beggar really has a message of some sort for us, so I’ll have to let him come aboard. But if he tries any hanky-panky tricks, I’ll send him over the side in double-quick time to feed the sharks. I can’t afford to have this venture miss fire now. Jones, open the gangway, and throw a rope over the side,” he added, turning to one of the seamen; “and stand by to hit, and hit hard, if everything is not exactly as it should be.”
A rope was allowed to slide over the side through the open entry port; and a moment later it began to quiver as the occupant of the boat left his craft and proceeded to scramble up, hand over hand. Presently there appeared on deck a little, thin, wizened man, who might have been any age over sixty. He was clothed in nothing but a length of brown cotton material swathed round his body, and round the upper part of each leg, the end being drawn up between the thighs so as to form a kind of rough apology for a pair of knickerbockers. His lower limbs and feet were bare, and on his head he wore one of those high, broad-brimmed, conical hats that are so common among the Koreans.
“Well,” exclaimed Drake sharply, as this peculiar-looking individual reached the deck and stood staring round him, “what the dickens d’ye want? Who are ye? What’s your name?”
“My name Ling-Wong, mastel,” replied the Korean, “and I come flom Excellency Kyong-Bah, at Yong-wol.”
“Phew!” whistled Drake, turning to Frobisher. “Kyong-bah is the man I negotiated with about this cargo. What’s in the wind, I wonder? Yes—go on,” he added to Ling impatiently. “What’s your message?”
“Me wait, mastel, six, seven day,” said Ling, “wait fol the smoke-junk, to tell you that the Govelnol at Seoul, he got know about evelything, and he sendee tloops catchee you, if he can. Excellency Kyong-Bah tell me say you he must havee those lifles, and think you get them safe thlough if you vely quick and caleful; but he tell me say you must hully, ol you be caught.”
“And that’s over a week ago!” groaned Drake. “What chance have we, think you, Mr. Frobisher, of getting this cargo safely through now?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Frobisher cheerfully, seeing that Drake was inclined to take a dismal view of things; “if we can get ’em ashore uninterfered with, I’ll engage to deliver them to Kyong-Bah, or whatever the johnny’s name is, safely enough. Nil desperandum, you know, skipper—that’s Latin for ‘You never know what you can do till you try’.”
“Those Latin chaps certainly did know how to say a lot in a few words, didn’t they, Mr. Frobisher?” remarked Drake, a little more cheerfully. “But do you really think you can get through if we get the arms safely ashore?”
“Sure of it,” answered Frobisher, with a good deal more confidence than he really felt. “I’ll take this chap as a guide, collect sufficient carts and mules at Sam-riek to take the whole lot at one trip, and then get this man Ling to show me some bypath over the hills which the Government troops are not likely to take. I understood you to say that there is a good road from Yong-wol to Sam-riek; and, if I know anything of Orientals, the troops will take it. If, then, we take another route, you will have the pleasure of seeing those fellows sitting on their haunches in Sam-riek, waiting for you to unload your cargo into their lap, while I shall be travelling another way, under a heavy press of canvas, conveying the consignment on its way to its proper owners. Savvee?”
Drake brought his hand down on Frobisher’s shoulder. “By the Great Horn Spoon, Mr. Frobisher,” he exclaimed, “I don’t know what I should have done without you! That’s a Hundred A1 plan; and if you can only get safely away before the troops appear, I’ll engage so to arrange matters that they shall believe the cargo to be still in the ship. That’ll keep ’em busy long enough to allow you to carry out your part without interference. Of course a lot’ll depend upon the extent to which the people of Sam-riek dislike the Government. If they are really on the side of the rebels, they’ll keep mum about the stuff being already ashore; but if there are any traitors among them, the first thing they’ll do will be to curry favour by setting the troops after you, one-time.”
“Yes, that’s so,” agreed Frobisher, stroking his chin. “Still, it’s the only way out that I can see; and the sooner we get the cargo ashore and test the scheme for ourselves, the better, I think.”
“Right!” answered Drake. “Come along, boys,”—to the listening crew—“you have heard what’s been said, so you see we’ve got to hurry. Jones, take this fellow Ling down below, and lock him up somewhere until Mr. Frobisher is ready for him—I’m not taking any risks this trip. Then, when you’ve done that, take a few of the hands and swing eery one of our boats over into the water. We have enough cases on deck now to begin taking some of them ashore.”
Encouraged by the captain and Frobisher, both of whom worked as hard as, or harder than, any of the seamen, the men buckled-to again in earnest; and soon the chests and cases were leaping up out of the holds on to the decks, off the decks into the boats, and so ashore, at a very satisfactory rate of progress.
All night the work went swiftly and steadily on, and well into the following morning, with only a few minutes’ break for meals. Frobisher went ashore early in the morning with one of the loads, taking Ling with him as interpreter, in order to make arrangements for the transport of the cargo, and also to try to discover if there were as yet any signs of the arrival of the troops.
The villagers proved only too glad of the chance to hire out their carts and animals; and after a lengthy ride along the Yong-wol road, on a horse which he had borrowed, Frobisher satisfied himself that, thus far at any rate, there was no sign of troops in the neighbourhood.
By the time he got back to the ship the last of the cases was just being placed on deck, and two more trips of the little fleet of the Quernmore’s