The Captain belayed the boats and ordered Rashleigh round there instead. He had signalled, as he drew near, that he had found the pirate dépôt deserted, and not a junk of any sort or description to be seen, and had therefore come along here at his utmost speed. Whatever demerits Rashleigh may have had as a writer of despatches, he certainly could not have turned up at a more opportune moment, and we all felt grateful to him. I had forgotten to order Trevelyan and Ford to send in their own reports concerning the loss of their junks, but the arrival of the _Ringdove_ reminded me of the Captain’s order, and I sent for them. They were both very bitter about the way in which Rashleigh had reported on them, and I heard Ford say to Trevelyan as they went away, "I’ll write a snorter, sir." As the reports had to go through my hands before the Skipper saw them, I knew that I should be able to "tone" them down if necessary, so said nothing at the time.
The Captain was in great good humour now, and had forgotten all about the firing and his morning’s wrath. "Hoffman tells me," he said, "that there are about a thousand men ashore; got plenty of rifles, too, and ammunition, and will probably put up a good fight. So long as Hobbs and Sally are safe, ’Old Lest’ ain’t going to be hurried for nobody, and he’s going to wait till the other gunboats come along. Can’t do any more by myself, Truscott."
Hoffman himself was down with fever, and, old Mayhew told me, was pretty bad. I met him coming out of the cabin, and he held up a thermometer for me to look at. I couldn’t get the hang of it myself, but he told me it marked 104 degrees.
"Get him on his legs again as soon as you can, old chap," I said; but Mayhew shrugged his shoulders, and he and Barclay went away together to yarn about him. Thank goodness the other wounded people, young Morton included, were doing well.
We took every precaution to prevent anything escaping that night, and sent in both Hoffman’s Chinamen, with a couple of Very’s lights apiece, with orders to try and find out if any attempt was made to move Hobbs or his daughter, and to fire them, down at the water’s edge, if any such attempt was made.
They were evil enough looking fellows, but Hoffman swore that they were to be trusted, so we had to trust them.
