Suddenly the sharp crack of a pistol rang out, followed by another, and then a perfect fusillade.
The Old Man leapt from his seat, drew an automatic from his hip pocket, and without waiting for the others, dashed on deck. The doctor and the purser vanished. So did the Chinese servants.
“Got a revolver handy?” asked the second officer hurriedly. “Fetch it. I’m off to get mine.”
Raxworthy needed no second bidding. He followed the second officer along the alleyway until they separated outside their respective cabins. He didn’t even have to ask what the violent commotion was about. He knew.
It was an attempt on the part of pirates disguised as Chinese passengers to seize the ship.
This sort of thing had been done before. In fact, cases of piracy in the China Sea were far too frequent, notwithstanding the increasing vigilance of the European officers—for even ships flying the ensign of Republican China as well as those flying the Red Duster and manned by native crews, were almost invariably officered by British subjects.
Pulling out his bunch of keys, Raxworthy was about to unlock his sea chest when the lid opened under the movement of his hand. Even in his excitement the midshipman noticed it.
“Could have sworn I locked the jolly old thing,” he muttered. “Perhaps I didn’t, though.”
The revolver, fully loaded, was reposing in a holster and sandwiched between his great coat and one of his tropical uniforms. Somewhere in the chest he had stowed an unopened packet of service ammunition. At least, he thought he had, but it was not to be found.
Slamming the lid of the chest, Raxworthy left his cabin, breaking the revolver as he did so in order to reassure himself that the weapon was fully loaded. The heads of six brass cartridge cases showed themselves in the chambers. So far so good!
Raxworthy almost collided with the third officer who had come out of his cabin with a small American revolver in his right hand.
“Keep your weather eye lifting!” cautioned the latter. “Here! Get behind me!”
Without ceremony he pushed the midshipman on one side and continued his way along the otherwise deserted alleyway. Overhead pandemonium reigned.
The third officer’s bulky form obstructed the companion way. Raxworthy saw his shoulder moved as he raised his right arm. Through the gap between the third’s body and the jamb the midshipman caught a glimpse of a mob of Chinese, some armed with automatics, others brandishing broad-bladed knives and iron bars.
The third fired in rapid succession—six shots at about five yards’ range. Then he dropped on his hands and knees across the raised coaming of the companion-way.
That left Raxworthy’s outlook almost unimpeded. He was standing on the third step of the ladder from the top, and his waist was nearly level with the luckless Englishman.
The pirates rushed forward, probably not knowing that another armed man barred their passage. They were only a part of the crowd that had treacherously attacked the ship’s officers, and thinking that all resistance was now at an end they were making for the saloon and cabins with the object of looting.
Levelling his revolver, Raxworthy fired at the broad naked chest of the foremost pirate. At that distance it was almost impossible to miss, and the midshipman had won a trophy for pistol shooting, competed for by the junior officers of the fleet.
The pirate continued to advance, apparently uninjured. There certainly was no ugly wound in his chest that one would expect from a heavy bullet fired at a few yards’ distance.
Raxworthy fired again.
Even in the moment of extreme peril he tumbled to it. There was hardly any kick of his revolver as he fired.
“Surely I wasn’t such an idiot as to load with blank?” he thought.
He fired again.
The pirate was almost within hand’s reach. The blast from the muzzle of his revolver pitted his chest. Raxworthy had a distinct recollection of that.
Then his ideas grew distinctly misty.
Something heavy descended upon his head.
A vivid white light spangled with countless stars flashed before his eyes. Then everything became a blank.
The midshipman was not long in a state of unconsciousness; but a lot had happened during that time.
When he opened his eyes and his scattered senses were able to act more or less in consort, he found himself lying on the well-deck and without protection from the tropical sun.
The pirates were active and apparently moving in procession past the spot where he lay. What they were doing he could not make out.
On either side of him was a bound man. The one on his left turned his head and said something that the midshipman could not catch. It was the ship’s doctor. There was a dark red stain above the elbow on the sleeve of his jacket. The wound was bleeding profusely. Neither the pirates nor their victim had taken any steps to staunch the flow; the former probably through complete indifference, the latter because he was bound hand and foot.
On trying to raise himself to tend to the wounded man, Raxworthy discovered that he himself was bound hand and foot—or rather, his ankles were bound and his arms secured behind his back by a short length of rope that allowed only a limited movement.
“Hello, young man!” exclaimed the doctor, speaking with difficulty. “What have they given you?”
“Crack over the head,” replied Raxworthy. “And you?”
“Bullet through the arm. My own pistol, most likely. It was missing when I went to my cabin.”
“And mine was tampered with. Either the bullets were broken out of the cartridges or else some blighter reloaded with blank and shoved the revolver back in my sea-chest.”
“Ten to one it was that oily rascal of a steward,” hazarded the doctor. “They shot the Old Man down like a dog. The third’s on your right. I don’t know what’s happened to the other deck officers or the engineers.”
For some moments they remained silent. The midshipman altered his position slightly to obtain some shade from the shadow of the foremast. By that fact his seamanship told him that the Ah-Foo was now on approximately a south-easterly course—heading for the coast of the mainland.
Then he happened to look along the deck, which was only a few inches below the level of his eyes. To his horror he saw the decapitated head of a child rolling between the coaming of the cargo hatch and the scuppers.
“Look, doctor!” he exclaimed.
The doctor gave a wry smile.
“Yes, the solution to the mystery how the pirates smuggled their arms on board,” he rejoined. “It’s only a doll’s head! Those women we took aboard are working with the pirates.”
So that was it! Most if not all of the children in arms were dolls that concealed the weapons that had enabled the pirates to rush the bridge and capture the ship. Although each male passenger had been rigorously searched as he came on board, no one had thought to disturb the “infants” that slumbered so soundly in the shawls that strapped them to their “mothers’ ” backs.
It was a new ruse on the part of the pirates. Hitherto they had concealed arms in baskets containing meal and rice; they had strapped automatics to their ankles; they had hidden them under their bowl-shaped hats. In every case they had been successful in surprising the officers of the various ships upon which they had designs. In most instances survivors—for the pirates rarely went to the extreme measure of murdering their prisoners—reported how the arms had been smuggled into the ship. This made the searchers at the port of embarkation wise. The pirates hardly ever repeated their ruses. It had developed into a continual war—the pitting of the brains of the authorities against those of these modern buccaneers of the China Sea.