As the prisoner stood erect, Carpenter saw that he was a man of herculean proportions and over six feet three or four inches in height.  His arms and naked chest were cut, bleeding and bruised, and a bamboo gag was in his mouth; but what at once attracted the captain’s attention and sympathy was the man’s face.

So calm, steadfast, and serene were his clear, undaunted eyes; so proud, lofty, and contemptuous and yet so dignified his bearing, as he glanced at his guards when they bade him walk, that Carpenter, drawing back a little, raised his hand in salute.

In an instant the deep, dark eyes lit up, and the tortured, distorted mouth would have smiled had it not been for the cruel gag.  But twice he bent his head, and his eyes did that which was denied to his lips.

Captain Carpenter was deeply moved.  The man’s heroic fortitude, his noble bearing under such physical suffering, the tender, woman-like resignation in the eyes which could yet smile into his, affected him so strongly that he could not help asking one of the “braves” the prisoner’s name.

An insolent, threatening gesture was the only answer.  But the prisoner had heard, and bent his head in acknowledgment.  When he raised it again and saw that Carpenter had now taken off his cap, tears trickled down his cheeks.  In another moment he was hurried along the deck into the cabin, and half a dozen “braves” stood guard at the door to prevent intrusion, whilst the gag was removed, and the victim of the Viceroy’s vengeance was urged to eat.  Whether he did so or not was never known, for half an hour afterwards he was removed to one of the state-rooms, where he was closely guarded by Kwang’s cutthroats.  When he was next seen by Carpenter and the officers of the steamer the gag was again in his mouth, but the calm, resolute eyes met theirs as it trying to tell them that the heroic soul within the tortured body knew no fear, and felt and appreciated their sympathy.

On the afternoon of the third day after leaving Formosa the steamer ploughed her way up the muddy waters of the river, and came to an anchor off the city at a place which was within half a mile of the Viceroy’s residence.  The mandarin requested the captain to fire three guns, and hoist the Chinese flag at both the fore and main peaks.

This signal was, so Kwang condescended to say, to inform His Illustriousness the Ever-Merciful Viceroy that he, Kwang, his crawling dependent, guided by Carpenter’s high intelligence, and supreme and honoured skill as a navigator, had achieved the object which His Illustriousness desired.

The captain listened to all this “flam,” bowed his acknowledgments, and then suddenly asked the mandarin the prisoner’s name.

Again the fat, complacent face darkened, and almost scowled.  “No,” he replied sullenly, he himself “was not permitted” to know the prisoner’s name.  His crime?  He did not know.  When was he to be tried?  To-morrow.  Then he rose and abruptly requested the captain to ask no more questions.  But, he added, with a smile, he could promise him that he should at least see the captive again.