Stan Lynn Part 55

"Only half-done," said Stan, with a sigh.

"What! I think it was splendidly well done. What do you mean by your 'half-done'?"

"Why, you said the enemy would come back again."

"Ye-es; so I did; but I don't feel so sure now."

"How is that?" asked Stan, impressed by his companion's manner.

"Well, you see, one often judges how the weather is going to be by the behaviour of the animals about one. Birds, cattle, reptiles, insects, fish, if one studies them, give one hints of what sort of a season one is going to have. Chinese, too, are not slow in that way. You see Mao has come back."

"Yes; but what has that to do with it?"

"A good deal. He has a sort of instinctive as well as experienced knowledge that the trouble is at an end, or else he wouldn't have shown his nose here now. I shouldn't wonder if he had a hint that the enemy were coming, some time before they arrived."

"But if he had he would have warned you."

"So he did, in a quiet sort of way, but I didn't believe him. Yes, I begin to think that you gave the enemy such an awful thras.h.i.+ng--"

"I?" cried Stan. "Why, I only carried out your orders."

"And well, too, my lad; and as I was about to say when you interrupted me so rudely, you gave them such an awful thras.h.i.+ng that in the future they will look out for some nut to crack that has a thinner sh.e.l.l and leave us most carefully alone. Mao has come back, and that means the storm is well over."

"But you'll be well prepared in case they do come again?"

"Trust me, my lad. You and I will begin to play chess of an evening in future."

"Have you a set of chess-men?"

"No; nor do I want them. We'll make the _hong_ our chess-board, and play the game of defiance with our brains."

"I have some idea of what you mean," said Stan, laughing, "but it is not quite clear."

"I mean, we'll set to and scheme how to meet our friends if they do come again. You see, one is sure to have warning. They can't come down the river without; and I can't help thinking that you and I ought to be able to contrive some kind of floating dodge which we could let down amongst the junks, and which would blow them up or set fire to them."

"Yes; I see," cried Stan eagerly. "Or why not try something with a big kite that we could drop down to explode on their decks. But of course I don't know how."

"There you are!" cried Blunt, clapping him on the back. "Bravo! The very thing!"

"Oh no," said Stan quickly. "That was just the ghost of an idea."

"True; but we'll set to and make it something solid. The people here have wonderful kites, and I'll be bound to say that you and I could contrive something chemical that we could send up and manage with a string till it was just over them, and then drop it where it would explode, so that it would scare them off even if it did not set fire to their junks. But wait a bit. We'll see."

"Yes; if you take it like that, I think we might contrive something. I say, why not some kind of torpedo that we could sink just off the wharf, connect it here with a wire, and have an electric battery to fire the charge? Why, if I had had such a thing here when the junks were all together off the place, I could have--"

"Blown them to smithereens, my lad," cried Blunt. "Bravo! And we'll have a little gun, too, that we can work easily--one that will send explosive sh.e.l.ls. There! that will do. I'm going to fill up an order for one battery of cells, thirteen as twelve torpedoes, so many yards of insulated wire, and--Here, I say, we ought out of common humanity to send word up the river to all pirates to make their wills before they come for their next attack."

"Or put up a big h.o.a.rding with a notice written in Chinese for all who come up and down the river to read."

"What about?"

"New patent steel traps and spring-guns are set in these grounds," said Stan, laughing.

"All right, my lad. Joke away; but I'm on my mettle, and if we can't contrive something better than walls and barricades of tea-chests and silk it's very strange."

"Well, we ought to, certainly."

"And we will. Just think of what a lot of good stuff has been made absolutely worthless. There is, I should say, a couple or three hundred pounds' worth of tea and silk--more perhaps--perfectly unsaleable."

"Couldn't you send it to market under another name?" said Stan, laughing.

"Name? What name?" growled Blunt contemptuously. "You can't sell tea that has been exposed to fire. What would you call it--coffee?"

"No; gunpowder tea," cried Stan merrily.

"One to you," said Blunt, with a grim laugh. "But what about your silk?"

"Oh, that's easy!" said Stan. "Call that shot silk."

"Good gracious!" cried Blunt, with mock solemnity. "The poor fellow is going wrong. Overstrain, I suppose, from the excitement of the fight.

There! try and be calm. It's a bad sign when a fellow begins to make feeble jokes. Don't try again, Lynn. Keep on with some nice, light, playful idea or two, such as the flying kites and contriving busters for the Chinese junks. Those would be gentle, innocent pursuits. But seriously, though, the more I think of what you say the more I am taken by it. You see, it would be quite new and startling for the enemy.

Those junks are as fragile as can be, and a very little would send them to the bottom. Here, I say, I think I have it. Isn't there a chemical that we could squirt over them from an engine of some kind?"

"What for?"

"To burn them. I once saw a chemical experiment in which such stuff was thrown on to some light wood, and it burst into flame at once. That's the stuff we want. If we can set one junk on fire, it will set more in the same condition. What do you say to that?"

"Splendid, if it could be done."

"Could be done? It must be done, and we're going to do it. Oh, there are more ways of killing a cat than hanging it. Let the pigtails come.

They shall find that I'm not going to have any more of our chests and bales spoiled. I think--"

"So do I," said Stan firmly--"that you've been talking twice as much as you ought to do; so now have a rest."

"Well, I am a bit husky," said Blunt, "but not like the same man to-day.

Humph! Perhaps you are right."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

"WING'S A--CHINAMAN."

Several anxious days were pa.s.sed, during which a sharp lookout was kept for the return of Wing with the ammunition; but still it did not come, and, as Blunt reasonably said, they could not settle down comfortably to invention and forms of defence by schemes until they could feel prepared temporarily for an emergency.

"Once we have two or three cases of cartridges in hand we'll go to work at our plans. But this waiting takes it out of a man."

"It is giving you time to get a little stronger," replied Stan.