Hobbs on the stern and the lifebuoys, and didn't reckon it counted, altering the registration."

Well, that put matters in a new light, and I felt pleased at the prospect of our taking a hand in the game.

I happened to think of Lawrence finding his chum on board the Huan Min, and told the Captain about the strange coincidence. "He's probably on board now, sir; he was coming over after dinner, if he possibly could."

"Umph! I'd like to see him. He would probably be useful," growled the Skipper, and sent "Willum" for him.

He came in presently, a fine-looking fellow in his black silk tunic with gold dragons round the sleeves, tall and upright, with a determined, prize-fighting jaw, which took the Skipper's fancy directly.

He sat down, couldn't keep his eyes off Miss Hobbs, and told us the story which you know already. He was very bitter about everything: his guns were worn out, his ammunition rotten, and his shells wouldn't burst, and, he added, wincing, that they had not had sufficient medical stores for their wounded.

The Skipper, who, I could see, was much attracted by him—it was his square jaw that did it—offered to send carpenters over to help repair damages next morning (our doctors had already taken charge of the wounded), and promised that he would take the Vigilant down to investigate the island.

I waited only long enough for the Skipper to make out his orders for raising steam in the morning, and slipped away to bed.

Next day we sent Hobbs and his daughter ashore—they were to stay with the Macphersons at the Mission House—and steamed down to the island, off which the Huan Min had received such a hammering.

Though we spent the whole day examining not only the coast line, but the interior itself, not a trace could be found of the existence of any pirates or any battery. In fact, the island appeared to be uninhabited, and we steamed back somewhat out of patience with ourselves.

The next day the Taotai from the old town of Tinghai came on board in great state, amidst the firing of three gun salutes from the war junks and the Huan Min. The Captain of that ship came with him, and Ching also, to act as interpreter. I don't quite know what their idea was, but they imagined that the Skipper could do anything, and they implored him to do something. The poor, feeble old Taotai seemed to be at his wits' end, and must have stayed a couple of hours on board, pouring his woes into the Skipper's extremely unsympathetic ears. It appeared that he was responsible for the maintenance of order throughout the archipelago, and that piracy had lately been increasing to an alarming extent. From island after island memorials and petitions had been pouring in for the last six months, and the old man quite broke down when he told us how impossible it was to do anything, and how he dare not report the whole state of affairs to his Viceroy on the mainland.

"Why not?" growled the Skipper, glaring at him.

"He'd probably be dismissed, sir, or lose his head," Ching answered.

"And a good thing too. Umph!" the Captain muttered. "Tell the old chap that I'm sending a gunboat up to Shanghai to-morrow or the next day, and will report everything to the Admiral, and must wait his orders. It's no use me looking for that yacht by myself—might as well look for a needle in a haystack. Umph!"

What annoyed him was that the Taotai wouldn't send out his war junks. We didn't know the real reason for some weeks, but the old Taotai almost cried when he said that if the Huan Min could be beaten off by them, the feeble junks wouldn't stand a chance. There was a good deal of sense in that.

Of course, instances of piracy are always cropping up among these islands—we had been long enough in Chinese waters to know that—and we knew, too, that unless they became very numerous in the same locality, the authorities did not take much notice of them. You see it was only in times of bad trade, when perhaps the fishing had been a failure, or when the crops had been destroyed by one of the typhoons which used to devastate the islands lying in its track, that the inhabitants, practically threatened with starvation, would take to piracy as a means of tiding over the bad time.

Just imagine the temptation of seeing some lumbering great junk becalmed off your village, or stuck fast in the mud, if everyone was hungry and desperate, and imagine what an easy thing it was to man all your boats, surround her, and capture her. The chances were that she was full up with foodstuffs, beans, or rice or fish, and there was little to fear from the authorities, far away in Tinghai. They would never hear of it either, if you knocked the crew on the head. That is practically what would happen, and one lucky capture would set a village "up", till next harvest enabled them to carry on their peaceable pursuits.

Sometimes, of course, it happened that their appetites would be so whetted with their success, that they would lay in wait for every favourable opportunity, and every crawling junk which passed. Sooner or later it would be known that it was dangerous to take that channel, and sooner or later, if the trouble continued, a war junk or two, or perhaps one of the Peiyang corvettes, would be sent there to burn the village and hang a few of the inhabitants.

That is what you may call the ordinary course of events, and so long as someone did get hanged and some village was burnt, all went smoothly, and very little notice was taken of it.

But now, according to the old Taotai and Ching, it was a very different pair of shoes. There was organized piracy now; pirate junks cruised in twos and threes, cutting out junks anchored in front of their own villages, appearing from where no one knew, disappearing as mysteriously, but scattering death and ruin wherever they did appear.

A whole fleet of merchant junks, crowded together for safety, had recently been attacked by half a dozen pirate junks, and but one had escaped, throwing her cargo overboard, and flying before the wind to bear the news.

Not only were they evidently organized, but they also must have had spies in the principal centres, because, not two months ago, a war junk carrying the monthly salt tax to the mainland had been surrounded by pirates and forced to surrender, in sight of land. She had put up a good fight, and was well armed—for a war junk—and not the least notice had been taken of several merchantmen sailing with her for protection. This outrage was the real reason why the Huan Min had been sent down.

Merchant junks always do carry four or five small muzzle-loading carronades, and these pop-guns had, up to now, been generally sufficient to scare away any sea robbers. Now, however, these gentry had got possession of such powerful weapons, that antiquated smooth bores were out-ranged entirely.

For months junks hardly dare quit an anchorage, unless they sailed in company with others, and if a strange lateen mat sail was sighted, would huddle together, and be only too glad to escape by disabling one of their own number, and leaving her a prey to their pursuer. You can understand the fright of these poor wretches, as they