his remaining here with no
possible object to gain when his cargo was stowed and the ship homeward-
bound. The seamen could make nothing of it, however; and there was much
grumbling forwards at this unlooked-for hitch in their departure from
the land of "chin chins" and "no bony Johnny."

Jem Backstay, who was a stalwart, able-bodied seaman, and as smart a
"hand" as could be found in a day's cruise, did not appear at all
convinced by what his chum Bill, the boatswain, had said, for he
returned again to the conversation after the latter had apparently ended
it with his monosyllabic "aye."

"Lor', mate!" said he, "I thinks your old brains are wool-gathering
about pirates. I've been sailing in these here China seas since I were
no higher than your thumb and I never see none."

"Haven't you?" muttered the other disdainfully.

"No, never a one."

"And you've never seen none of 'em h'executed, as I have, at Canton, in
batches of a dozen or more?"

"No, Bill; how does they do it?"

"Why, mate, they makes the beggars all kneel down in a row, with their
hands tied behind them so that they can't put 'em up. Then a chap comes
along--I s'pose he's called their Jack Ketch--and he carries a sword
that's partly made like a cutlass and partly like a butcher's cleaver,
with which he slices off all their heads like so many carrots."

"Lor'!"

"Yes, bo; and the funny thing is to see this executioner chap going
along behind all the kneeling figures, afore he knocks their heads off,
and pulling this one here and a-shovin' that one theer, so arrangin' on
'em that he can have a clean stroke when he ups with his sword."

"Lor'!" exclaimed the other on hearing this description.

"Yes, bo, it's all true as gospel what I'm a-tellin' on you. The
hangman chap don't seem to make no more account of them poor devils than
if they wos so many wooden dummies, like them `Quaker guns' as they
call--cos they can't hurt nobody, I s'pose--that them silly artful
Chinese mounted in the Bogue forts to frighten us, as they thought, when
we went to war with 'em last time, you know."

"But, talkin' about h'executions, Bill, ain't talkin' of pirates, is it,
bo? P'raps those poor ignorant chaps you seed have their heads chopped
off mightn't no more a' been pirates than you or I."

"Mightn't they!" ejaculated the boatswain of the _Hankow Lin_ in the
most indignant tones. "Much you know about it, you son of a sea-cook,
that's all! Why, Jem, I co