Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/245

Rh the Hainan Strait. A day or two after we ran out of water.

Just where we were I am not prepared to say. That’s the truth. No lies! The coast was strange to me. I know the China Seas perhaps as well as a good many men, but I had never been in the Gulf of Tongkin before. I will say this, we were not a thousand miles from Lienchow.

We were still hugging the coast when they told me the stores were out. I ordered them to take her in as close as she could be got. A little delay more or less didn’t matter a snap of the fingers to me. I had got as far that. Considering we weren’t over-coaled it was pretty far. It was a lovely evening, a Friday as it happened—I must have been born on a Friday! In about a couple of hours the sun would be setting, so, if we were quick, there would be time to get something aboard before the night was on us. And quick would have to be the word, because, in the forecastle they had reached pretty nearly their last biscuit.

I am not excusing myself. I own I could not have managed worse if I had tried. I knew all along the stores were running short. I had refused to refit at Hong Kong out of pure cussedness. What I said was that if the lubbers wouldn’t ship their cargo, I wouldn’t buy their stores. And I didn’t. I meant to take in fresh supplies when we had a chance. We had not had a chance as yet. But now that we had come down to nothing it was clear that we must get something, if it was only enough to take us along for a day or two.

Fortunately the sea was calm, the anchorage good. We were able to run close in. Directly a boat was lowered the men started off as if they were rowing for grub-stakes. Which they were.

So far as I could see the country thereabouts was uninhabited. If that was the case, it was a poor look out for us. But as it was a shelving shore, with trees