Several days passed before Sing-Cheng had recovered sufficiently to move about freely. During these days Bob spent many anxious hours in thinking and thinking again. He consulted nobody. If Yamaguchi had been at hand, Bob would have discussed every detail of the problem with him; but he did not care to unbosom himself to strange Japanese officers, and he hesitated to go to General Kuroki himself until he could put before him a scheme that was reasonable and likely to command his approval. He put many questions to Ah-Sam and the chief--questions which sometimes puzzled them, and to which he obtained sometimes useless answers; but all the time he was fitting together the bits of information he obtained, and slowly outlining a plan.
At length one day he went to head-quarters and asked for an interview with the general.
"Well, Mr. Fawcett," said Kuroki on seeing him, "are you ready to rejoin the fleet?"
"Are there any orders for me, sir?" asked Bob anxiously. "I hope not."
"At present you remain with me--at my request. But why do you say you hope not?"
"Because I wished to be still at your orders, sir. I have been thinking about Kobo San. You remember, sir, he is presumed to have been captured by the Manchu brigand Chang-Wo; is there any chance of a force being sent to rescue him?"
"None at all. I answer you quite frankly. Useful as Kobo San has been and might still be to us, he is now, if Chang-Wo's prisoner, in a part of the country remote from my line of advance, and an expedition on his behalf is out of the question. Besides, it would be labour and time lost. His life would not be worth a moment's purchase if we made an attack in force on Chang-Wo."
"I had thought of that, sir. But I wondered, that being the case, whether you would allow me with my Chinese boy and a Chunchuse chief to go secretly to Chang-Wo's haunt, and discover if we can whether Kobo San is there and still alive, and communicate with him if possible."
"That would be a dangerous business, Mr. Fawcett."
"Possibly, sir; but I have been over the mountains before, and the Chunchuse knows the district well, and was in fact at one time a member of the same gang. I should like to make the attempt, for Kobo San has been a good friend to me."