“Mr. Goddedaal, turn the hands to to get the chests aboard,” said Wicks.

The four Currency Lasses had waited the while on tenter-hooks.  This welcome news broke upon them like the sun at midnight; and Hadden burst into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as he heaved upon the tackle.  But the work went none the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles were got over the side with alacrity; the boat was shoved off; it moved out of the long shadow of the Flying Scud, and its bows were pointed at the passage.

So much, then, was accomplished.  The sham wreck had passed muster; they were clear of her, they were safe away; and the water widened between them and her damning evidences.  On the other hand, they were drawing nearer to the ship of war, which might very well prove to be their prison and a hangman’s cart to bear them to the gallows—­of which they had not yet learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and the doubt weighed upon their heart like mountains.

It was Wicks who did the talking.  The sound was small in Carthew’s ears, like the voices of men miles away, but the meaning of each word struck home to him like a bullet.  “What did you say your ship was?” inquired Wicks.

“Tempest, don’t you know?” returned the officer.

Don’t you know?  What could that mean?  Perhaps nothing:  perhaps that the ships had met already.  Wicks took his courage in both hands.  “Where is she bound?” he asked.

“O, we’re just looking in at all these miserable islands here,” said the officer.  “Then we bear up for San Francisco.”

“O, yes, you’re from China ways, like us?” pursued Wicks.

“Hong Kong,” said the officer, and spat over the side.

Hong Kong.  Then the game was up; as soon as they set foot on board, they would be seized; the wreck would be examined, the blood found, the lagoon perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the dead would reappear to testify.  An impulse almost incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the thwart, shriek out aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing to dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and death thus visibly approaching.  But the indomitable Wicks persevered.  His face was like a skull, his voice scarce recognisable; the dullest of men and officers (it seemed) must have remarked that telltale countenance and broken utterance.  And still he persevered, bent upon certitude.

“Nice place, Hong Kong?” he said.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the officer.  “Only a day and a half there; called for orders and came straight on here.  Never heard of such a beastly cruise.”  And he went on describing and lamenting the untoward fortunes of the Tempest.