quarter of our journey towards the coast.

The sun rose higher and higher, until it was almost over our heads at
noon, when the wind dropping I found it very hot. Besides the
discomfort of this the fact of our not getting on so fast as previously
made me anxious about those we had left behind, although the Chinaman
told me the pirates would not be likely to start fighting again until it
was getting towards evening, which was their favourite time for attack,
as they always kept quiet in the day.

They would, he said, be especially afraid now of making a row in the day
more than at any other time, for fear of the sound of the fray being
heard by the gunboat, which they knew was cruising about near.

"I only wish we could see it now, Ching Wang," I cried, thinking that
before we got to the Canton river and returned with the man-of-war, all
our shipmates might be murdered and the poor Silver Queen set fire to by
the ruffians after pillaging her, as they would be certain to do when
Captain Gillespie and the brave fellows with him could hold out no
longer. "I only wish we could sight her now."

"You waitee, lilly pijjin," said he. "Bimeby soon comee."

It was dreary work, though, waiting, for we were going along very slowly
on the torpid sea, which seemed to swelter in the heat as the breeze
fell; but about two o'clock in the afternoon the south-west wind
springing up again, we once more began dancing on through the water at a
quicker rate, the sampan making better progress by putting her right
before wind and slacking off the sheet of our transformed sprit-sail.
An hour later, Ching Wang, who had gone into the bows to look out,
leaving me at the tiller, suddenly called out:

"Hi, lilly pijjin!" he shouted, gesticulating and showing more
excitement than he had ever displayed before, his disposition generally
being phlegmatic in the extreme. "One big smokee go long. Me see three
piecee bamboo walkee, chop chop!"

I rose up in the stern-sheets equally excited; and there, to my joy, I
saw right ahead and crossing our beam, a small three-masted vessel,
showing the white ensign and blood cross of Saint George, the most
beautiful flag in the world, I thought.

It was the gunboat, without doubt.

She had sighted us long before we noticed her; and seeing from our
altering our course now that we desired to speak her, she downed her
helm and was soon alongside the sampan.

Breathless, I clambered on board, a smart blue