The mandarin clambered up on deck, his always-smiling face (which Carpenter and his officers had come to detest) now darkly exultant.

“You have done well, sir,” he said to the captain; “the Viceroy himself, when my own miserable worthlessness abases itself before him, shall know how truly and cleverly you and your officers (who shall be honoured for countless ages in the future) have obeyed the behests which I have had the never-to-be-extinguished honour to convey from him to you.  There is a prisoner in the boat—­a prisoner who is to be tried before those high and merciful judges whose Heaven-sent authority your valorous commander of the Ever Victorious Army has upheld.”

Carpenter, being a sailor man before all else, swallowed the mandarin’s compliments for all they were worth, and I can imagine him giving a grumpy nod to the smiling minion of the Viceroy as he ordered “the prisoner” to be brought on deck, and the boat to be veered astern for towing.

The official interposed oilily.  There was no need, he said, to tow the boat to Canton if she could not be hoisted on board, and was likely to impede the steamer’s progress.  Some of his braves could remain in her, and the insignia of the Viceroy which they wore would ensure both their and the boat’s safety—­no pirates would touch them.

The captain said that to tow such a heavy boat for such a long distance would certainly delay the steamer’s arrival in Canton by at least six or eight hours.  The mandarin smiled sweetly, and said that as speed was everything the most honourable navigator, whom he now had the privilege to address, and who was so soon to be distinguished by his mightiness the Viceroy, could at once let the boat which had conveyed his worthless self into the sunshine of his (the captain’s) presence, go adrift.

At a sign from Kwang, six of his cutthroats clambered down the side into the boat, which was at once cast oft; the steamer was sent along under a full head of steam, and the captain was about to ascend the bridge when the mandarin stayed him, and requested that a meal should be at once prepared in the cabin for the prisoner, who, he said, was somewhat exhausted, for his capture was only effected after he had killed three and wounded half a dozen of “the braves.”  So courageous a man, he added softly, whatever his offence might be, must not be allowed to suffer the pangs of hunger and thirst.

Carpenter gave the necessary order to the steward with a sensation of pleasure, feeling that he had done the suave and gentle-voiced Kwang an injustice in imagining him to be like most Chinese officials—­utterly indifferent and callous to human suffering.  Then he stepped along the deck towards the bridge just as two of the braves lifted the prisoner to his feet, which a third had freed from a thong of hide, bound so tightly around them that it had literally cut into the flesh.  His hands were tied in the same manner, and round his neck was an iron collar, with a chain about six feet in length which was secured at the end to another band around the waist of one of the “braves.”