I went on deck at once.  A good look at the corpse relieved me:  for as far as my recollection served, it bore no resemblance to the man I had pushed on the landing.  I told off two of the rowers of the previous day—­the two whose position in the bows had given them the best view of the scuffle—­to cut the thing adrift.  They did so and came back with the report that they had never seen the dead man before in their lives.  So I tried to feel easy.

But soon after breakfast, and almost in the full heat of the day, there came off a galley with two of the Hong merchants and no less a person than Mr. ‘—­’, the Chief of the H.E.I.C.’s factory.  He brought serious news.  The boat had drifted up the river and had been recovered by a crowd of Chinese, who took out the dead man and laid him on the doorstep of the factory, clamouring that he had been killed, the day before, by an Englishwoman; and threatening, unless she were given up, to seize the first supercargo that came out and carry him off to be strangled.

I answered, describing the scuffle and declaring my readiness to swear that the body bore no resemblance to the fellow whose ear Margit had boxed.  But I knew how little this testimony would avail in a Chinese court.  The two Hong merchants assured me that their brother, the Macartney’s guarantor, was already in the hands of the magistrates, who had handcuffed him and were threatening him with the bamboo:  that an interdiction lay on the Macartney’s cargo, and Mr. ‘—­’ himself ran no small risk of imprisonment.

Our position was at once absurd and extremely serious.  To do him justice, Mr. ‘—­’ at once agreed that there could be no question of delivering up Margit:  the penalty of her offence, if proved to the satisfaction of the Chinese magistrates, being—­I can hardly bring myself to write it—­nothing short of strangulation.  He could only promise to accept for the while the risks of delay and do his utmost to bribe the magistrates into compromising the matter for a small fine.

He proved as good as his word.  For five weeks the Macartney lay at anchor without discharging a pennyweight of her cargo; and every day brought a new threat, edict, or proclamation.  At the end of the first week the security merchant was allowed to send his agents to offer a reward of 10,000 dollars to any man of our crew who would swear to having seen the Englishwoman strike the deceased.  The agents conducted their parley from a boat, and only made off on being threatened with a bucket of slops.  I kept the ship’s guns loaded, and set on a double watch, night and day.  His wife’s peril threw Obed into a state of apprehension so pitiable that I began to fear for his mind.  Margit, on the other hand, behaved with the coolest composure:  and I had some trouble in persuading her to remain below decks and out of sight.  She relied cheerfully on us and on the crew, every man of whom she had bound to her (I suppose by her remarkable beauty) in the completest loyalty.