d all we
have to do now is to look out sharp for squalls in the meantime."

"Right, sir," said Captain Morton, "we'll all have to look out sharp,
for they're treacherous rascals at the best, and these seem to be the
worst! Keep your weather eye open, Scuppers, and give Sprott a hint--
although not a word, mind you, to the men yet, with the exception of
Bill Martens, who can be trusted to bide his time, as he knows already
as much as ourselves. As to little Jack Harper, he's a 'cute boy, and
is not likely to forget what he has heard." And there the conversation
ended and the subject dropped.

All that day the _Hankow Lin_ was working her way down the river from
Canton, which lies some eighty miles from its mouth; and at nightfall
the ship again anchored, the navigation being somewhat intricate and the
breeze dying away; but next morning it was up anchor and away again with
everything hoisted that could draw and the wind right astern, the vessel
making such good progress through the water that long before mid-day she
had passed through the Bocca Tigris, or "tiger's mouth" passage, and was
out in the open ocean.

The nor'-east monsoon, which blows in the China seas as regularly as
clockwork from October to April, and is the great trade-wind of the tea-
ships, had nearly blown out its course; but still, for a time it was all
in the _Hankow Lin's_ favour, and she went through the water at a fine
rate. Although she was pretty well laden, and was rather deep for a
vessel of her size, she walked along as if, as the sailors said, the
girls at home had got hold of the tow-rope; and when the log was hove at
noon she was going twelve knots with all sail set--not a bad pace that
for a trader; but, in the old days, before steam transformed the trade
through the Red Sea, these tea-ships were built for speed as well as
freight room.

Sundown came, and the great orb of day set in a crescent of ruby light,
making the sea like a gorgeous pantomime sea of molten gold as far as
the eye could reach; and still the wind held up fair and strong, and the
vessel careered over the expanse of ocean, that looked like living fire,
without slackening her rate of progress, rising and falling to the waves
with pendulum-like rhythm. And now night came on with its azure sky,
sprinkled with innumerable stars all glorious with scintillating light,
and the ship preserved the even tenor of her way; morning came again
with its freshness of roseate hue