The Skipper sent a boat to try and communicate with the pirates, and find out whether young Ford and these two men were alive and kicking. The boss pirate man was most polite, wrote back that they were doing well (we didn’t know whether that meant that they were wounded or not), and implored the Skipper not to attack the island again, as he was certain that it would provoke a massacre, or something equally unpleasant, of all the Europeans there, including little Sally Hobbs herself.
He added that he was keeping his prisoners, and as they would probably be the first victims, he thought this knowledge might add force to his entreaties to be let alone.
He didn’t know "Old Lest"—not by a long chalk.
The _Huan Min_ turned up during the morning, and that chap Ching (he was a good enough chap to have been a marine, if they had luxuries like that in the Chinese navy) and the skippers of the _Goldfinch_ and _Sparrow_ came across to the _Vigilant_, and had a regular pow-wow, talkee-talkee in the Captain’s cabin.
Ching was to land at sunset with some fifty of his men, and Hoffman was to go with him and guide him across country, straight to the walled house on the hill. They were to get through at all costs. It was Ching’s own suggestion; he and Hoffman thought they could do it, and I knew they would, if it was possible. Whilst he made a dash for the house, all the ships were to plug shell at two places in the island, some distance from the town itself, in order to distract their attention.
Hoffman wasn’t exactly dead, but that was about all you could say. He must have had an enormous amount of vitality, or whatever you call it, to keep "going". He looked most ghastly ill.
It was determined that every man we could fit out with a rifle and other conveniences for hurrying his "dear brethren" into eternity was to land from the _Vigilant_ and the four gunboats about an hour after Ching, and the whole day was spent in communicating with the _Ringdove_ and the _Omaha_ and completing these arrangements.
I’ve always longed to be a pirate myself, and the next best thing was to have the job of collaring one. My detachment were just as keen as I was, especially after last night’s shindy, and we fell in again and prepared to land, and have another go at ’em, as cheerfully as ducks in a thunderstorm.