Eventually he found a chance to crawl over the cargo, start
a plank in the ceiling, drop the bags down inside the jacket one by one,
and mark the place. Then, holding his peace until the cargo was out of the
hold, he drew a chalk line straight down from his mark to the lower deck,
took bearings from the hatch, and continued the line from the beam-clamp to
the bilge, and cut on the curve. There, of course, was where the money had
fallen. He worked hard--and failed."
Then I remembered the hatch that had been pried off when the natives were
ranging over the boat.
Early next morning Roger, Mr. Cledd, and I, placing the money between us in
the boat and arming ourselves and our men, each with a brace of pistols,
went ashore. That brief trip seems a mere trifle as I write of it here and
now, so far in distance and in time from the river at Whampoa, but I truly
think it was as perilous a voyage as any I have made; for pirates, or
Ladronesers as they were called, could not be distinguished from ordinary
boatmen, and enough true stories of robbery and murder on that river passed
current among seafaring men in my boyhood to make the everlasting fortune
of one of those fellows who have nothing better to do than sit down and
spin out a yarn of hair-raising adventures.
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