Page:All the Year Round - Series 1 - Volume 1.djvu/27

2Charles Dickens.] A herd of female jackos after one nut, in their native jungle, could not have made such a screeching clatter, and their Chinese swearing must have been something awful. The first bold man who disembarked had a terrible time of it. He carried letters and despatches. Now I have always considered the conveyance of the mails in Russia on an insecure and unsatisfactory footing, as illustrated by the Courier of St. Pe- tersburg on his four horses at Astley's; but I saw this man, with my own eyes, in four boats at once. I never heard whether he reached the shore, or was pulled to pieces. A-miu now re- turned and knocked A-tye over into the water with her oar; but the girl swam like a fish, and climbed up the boat in an instant - her clothes, only a silk blouse and trousers, soon drying in the Macao sun. And at last, amongst scream- ing, fighting, and struggling - crying, laughing, and swearing - I got to shore, but how, I have no more notion than how I once fell with a burst balloon, from the height of a mile, sur- rounded by fireworks, into a street in the Vaux- hall-road, which, for the life of me, I never could find out afterwards.

A very agreeable dinner, with plenty of cool beer, and "cups" of various descriptions, and a ride round the city, with a visit to the Cave of Camoëns, caused the evening to pass pleasantly enough. The kindness and hospitality of the great English houses in China is unbounded. Travellers bring in their luggage, and become "squatters" in the establishment for as long as it suits them, coming and going as they please. It is no intrusion on privacy to mention the names of the Dents and Jardines in connexion with these real accommodations in a country where hotels are not. Their courtesy to tra- vellers is world-famous.

It was my good fortune that evening to meet Mr. Osmond Cleverley, as Captain Castella had presaged. He alone escaped from the terrible massacre on board the Queen, the year before last; and as we sat on the balcony overlooking the bay, whilst our younger friends shot clay pellets at the dogs and tanka girls along shore, he gave me the following particulars : He left Hong Kong one fine morning in Fe- bruary, 1857, in the Queen - as I had left in the Fei-maa - with a mixed crew and passengers, English, Portuguese, and Chinese - the latter predominating.

The European passengers had, as usual, sat down to dinner in the saloon, off Lantao, when the Chinese left on deck and about the boat, by a preconcerted movement, suddenly knocked the mate and the man at the wheel on the head, threw them overboard, seized the arm-chest, which was on the bridge, with its cut- lasses and ready-loaded muskets, and began firing down on the passengers. The cap- tain (Wynn) and Mr. Cleverley seized their revolvers, and rushed up the ladder. The former was cut down as he reached the deck, and, falling on the latter, they were both thrown back into the cabin, and the hatches were im- mediately closed by those above, one of whom fell dead into the cabin by a shot from Mr. Cleverley's revolver.

Thus closed in a trap, they had nothing to look forward to but to be killed like beasts. The captain was almost senseless from a sword- cut on his skull; the engineer was undressing rapidly to leap overboard ; and the passengers and crew were too panic-stricken to do anything. Knowing that when the guns of the Chinese were fired they had no means of loading them again, Mr. Cleverley went alone up the ladder with a fresh revolver, and, forcing the cabin-door open, met his assailants. He was received with their fire, but shot three of them dead. They fell back, and, emboldened by this, he was ad- vancing, when a musket-ball passed through his thigh, smashing the bone. He again fell down back into the cabin, and the captain, seeing this, said, "Then all is over, sir. Here, take my revolver, and God bless you! we shall never meet again." He then stumbled to the stern- port, and threw himself into the sea, followed by the engineer. The Chinese fired after them, and they were never seen again.

Mr. Cleverley now bound up his broken leg, and was limping to the aft cabin, when another volley from deck was sent after him, followed by a Chinese yell of victory, as they rushed to- wards the saloon. Certain there was no chance left, he seized one of the rattan chairs common in China, and dragging it and himself towards the port sponsons, threw it into the water, and dropped in after it. Fortunately he was not perceived; the steamer, with nobody at her engines, kept on her way, and he was soon astern, floating, but alone in the sea! In great agony, as the swell moved his broken bone, he floated for nearly an hour, with the assistance of his chair. Once it escaped from his hand, and in turning to recover it, as he rose on a wave higher than ordinary, he discovered a lorcha working to windward: and, from his nautical knowledge, he knew that, not being weatherly, his true course would bring her within hail. And he was right: she came nearer and nearer, until she got within hail, and just within an hour from his leaving the steamer he was taken on board as the hapless Queen was seen slowly standing to the northward, and was now half-funnel down.

The lorcha took him on to Macao, not, how- ever, before the crew had asked him how much money he would give them to do so; and even then they would not land him amongst the Chinese boats. But he wrote on a card in pencil, "Mr. William Dent, or any other Euro- pean ;" and in half an hour Mr. Dent arrived, and took him to his house, placing him on a bed, which he did not leave for many months. He is now a cripple, and, although formerly distinguished for athletic exercises, limps about in great suffering.

All the Europeans on board the Queen were murdered, and the ship was burnt. The whole plan was conceived and carried out by that fiendish miscreant Yeh - another link in the chain of his hideous cruelties. Mr. Cleverley