We made several voyages together.  In the summer of the year 1894 we were in San Francisco, and rather at a loose end; Webster with a good deal of money in his possession, and spending it as usual in riotous living.  We were intimate at this time with a man named Francis Chubb, an Australian by birth, an able seaman, and a very reckless, daring, and resolute character.  To him it is owing that I have this tale to tell.  One night as we were sitting over our potations, he made us a singular communication and a singular proposition.  A shipper and merchant of the place, by whom he had often been employed, had, he said, asked him if he was open to run a cargo of warlike stores for the use of the Chinese soldiers in the struggle which had just broken out, there being rumours that the Chinamen were ill-prepared for a contest, and badly in need of supplies.  Chubb added that he had practically closed with the offer, and was looking about for men whom he could depend upon to join him in the enterprise, which his employer, foreseeing from the turn events were taking that the Chinese ports were likely soon to be blockaded, meant as a “feeler” to test the facilities for, and the profit likely to arise from, the organization of a system for supplying those munitions of war of which the Celestials were stated to be in want, some large orders being alleged to have been lodged with American firms on their behalf.  Chubb was to command the vessel, and he offered to Webster and myself the posts of first and second hands.  The remuneration was very handsome, and we, not adverse to the prospect of a little adventure, had little hesitation in closing with the proposal, much to Chubb’s satisfaction, who said we were “just the sort he wanted.”  His employer, Mr. H——­, I no sooner heard named, than I remembered to have heard described as a very keen hand, and not over-scrupulous.

The vessel which he placed at our disposal was a screw steamer of about 2000 tons, long, low, and sharp; an exceedingly fast boat, capable of doing her twenty knots an hour even when heavily laden, as, in a desperate emergency, we were soon to find out.  Articles signed, our cargo was procured and shipped—­cannon, rifles, revolvers, cartridges, fuses, medicines, etc., etc.  We cleared without difficulty, weighed, stood out, and laid our course straight across the North Pacific.

Our ship, the Columbia, proved a beauty, in every way fit for the risky business we were engaged upon.  Needless to say she had not only been selected for speed, but was rendered in appearance as unobtrusive as possible.  Besides lying low in the water, she was painted a dead grey, funnels and all.  The sort of coal we used, anthracite, burned with very little smoke, and even that little was obviated, as we approached the seat of war, by a hood on the smoke-stack.  She slipped through the water silently and noiselessly as one of its natural denizens, and on a dark night, with all lights out, could hardly have been perceived, even at a short distance, from the deck of another vessel.