A CLOSE SHAVE ON BOARD THE TIEN-TSING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 22, 11 July 1868, Page 5

A CLOSE SHAVE ON BOARD THE TIEN-TSING.

"It was rather a close shave, that!" said the colonel, knocking the ash off his cigar, and wiping his long moustache, after a pull at his, brandy and soda-water. " The poor fellow was broke afterwards, and died, I heard, the other day ; so I l don't mind telling you how it happened. " It was during one of our early campaigns in China. I was only a sub then, though expecting every day to find myself gazetted to a company of ' our.s,' for the fever had knocked over a. good many of my seniors, and, just till the very last, I had got off with only a slight touch of it. But, after a long turn of 'out-post duty, in the middle of those fearful swamps, I was laid on my back by-and-by fairly ; and, when 1 was about hajf dead, got invalided home. Home I never expected to reach. My only chance, I knew, was to catch the next mail steamer from Hong-Kong, and the journey down there, weak as. I was, I believed would do for me, However, I determined to risk it, though it was, more than doubtful whether I should get there, by land, before the Peninsula? and Oriental boat started. ' ' At the- eleventh hour, a. fellow I knew slightly, a countryman of- ruy, own, and a commissioner, or something, in th© Chinese service, came to me, atid offeved me a passage to Hong-Kong, from some little port on the coast, where a Chinese gunboat — the Tien-Tsiug, she was, sailed — was waiting for him. He wa» ordered home, too, and, being a swell, the? Government had ordered round the- TienTsing to take him. We were to start the next night- it was only a run of some ten lunix-s — and should catch the steamer at Hong-Kong comfortably. " I needn't tell you I accepted Farquhar's offer like a shot. It was too good to be refused. I should escape all the misery and fatigue of the exhausting land journey through the swamps ; exchange pestilence miasma for pure sea breezes ; and, above all, run no risk of losing the homeward mail. " * That's all right, then !' said Farquhar, when I thanked him. 'You'll travel down to the steamer with me. She leaves at midnight to-morrow. The boat don't start till noon next day, so we shall have lots of time !' " The next morning found Farquhar and myself on, board the Tien-Tsing. "A *akishJooking little gunboat she was ; English built, of course, and commanded by an Englishman, too, in Chinese pay — a. fellow w.ho had been something or other;, I never knew what— in out own navy. His name was Gurnock. And a veiy queer- fish 1 thought Captain Gurnock was, as he came out of the deck-house to receive us. A tall, thin individual, bearded to the eyes,, in a nondescript sort of u-niforir, a cutlass at his side, and a six-shooter in his belt — looking more like a stage pirate than anything else. "•And what eyes ! 1 can see them now;. Directly he looked at me, I guessed how- he came to have left ours fortlie Celestial service. "I suppose yon fellows, know that, whenever a m#n has, hajd. delirium tremena—or 'IH T., aa the- India.Tgoing people call it — his eyes attaoat invariably tell tales. They get a 100k.,, after a. touch of D. T., which nothing else, that I know of, can give them. Some fellows, of course, show it more than others ; but the look is there ever afterwards, and, to an old hand, it's perfectly unmistakable. " Well, when I looked at Captain Gurnock first^ I thought his eyes looked queer ; but the moment he looked at me I knew what made them look so. Our friend had been a bad case of D. T. ,<- oftener than once, perhaps. At that time, you know, there were all sorts of fellows in the Chinese pay, on one sideor the other. Renegades and refugees, Frenchmen, Yankees, and Englishmen, adventurers and desperadoes, were a.ll pretty well represented. When Captain Gurnock's career in our own service received that sudden check which I could not help fancying it had received, he didn't find more, difficulty than another, I dare say, in passing muster with the. Celestial Government. At all events, h£ had done his new masters good servicemen more than* one occasion-, since he got his present command ; and; the- Tien-Tsing, with its queer crew and queerer captain., had punished the rebels not a little. So, they didn't trouble their heads at all about any little weakness for the rum bottle he might choose to indulge in privately now and then. " And Captain Gurnock certainly drank a good deal of rum that evening we can\e on board the gunboat. " We all three, ho, I, and Farquha* the commissioner-, sat in the deck-cabin till about half -past eleven. We had elected to sleep, there on the two little sofas under mosquito-curtains, in preference to going down to be stifled below — that is, Farquhar and I. The captain said he should be on deck during the' passage, and take- his chance of a nap. The sea was as smooth as glass, and we should run down to Hong-Kong in eight hours easily, he added. This was good news. No fear- of missing the mail-boat now ; and as 1 rolled myself on- to my sofa, and secured the curtains carefully about me, I congratulated myself once more on having fallen in with Farquhar. " The commissioner was a trump, certainly. He had looked after me like a brother during our journey down to the steamer, and now I was indebted to his good nature for the best berth on .board the Tien-Tsing. "He had, like myself, partly undressed, and, cheroot in mouth, turned in on the opposite sofa. Between us was ' the little cabin-table vichereon we- had deposited our revolvers. " Ou.t there, you know, a fellow never dreams- of going to sleep, without- a revolver handy under his pillow, but that night, of course, we knew there was very little likelihood of a pistol being wanted hi suoh a hurry. " The gunboat had got under way, and was skimming the quiet sea like a seabird. Farquhar and I laid awake awhile, chatting and smoking,, and telling one another our yarns of the country and the ' pig- tails,' till, insensibly^ we both dropped off to sleep. " I was dreaming of home pleasantly I enough— fancying myself strolling in the

summer twilight by the loch by Cousin Annie's side, when a row on deck half woke me. A noise of scuffling and stamping, and then a pistol-shot.

" I was broad awake when I heard that. My first thought was that we had come across a pirate junk, who had mistaken us for an unarmed despatch-boat ; and, gathering myself together, I was just about to spring from my sofa and aecure my revolver, which lay just out of my reach on the table, w.hen suddenly the cabin doors were burst open, and, with a yell, that made my blood run cold, so absolutely unearthly was it, a man, with a, drawn cutlass in one hand, and a smoking six-shooter in the- other, rushed in, whirl-, ing the heavy cutlass roimd his head, and blaspheming and yelling tike a fiend. This man followed an imaginary foe all round the deck-house, giving point, and slashing away like a madman.

•'It was Gurnock; foaming at the mouth, his eyes blazing like carbuncles and starting out of his head ; gone mad, or taken suddenly with a fit of D. T.

"Suddenly he halted mjdway between the sofas. As I met the horrible gla^e of his eyes, I felt that it was all up with me. Even if I had been a match for him, — and 1 was rather weaker than a kitten — the close-fastened mosquito curtains would have hindered my spring ; and, once entangled in them, he might have cut me down without any trouble. To reach my revolver was out of the question — at the first attempt, he would lwe f potted ' me to a. moral ; and to try and gain the deck was- hopeless. There was no chance of any help* The- frighted crew had probably bolted below when the first shot, which had woko me up, was fired.

"What was, Ito do? It was hard, after going through the whole affair without a scratch, to be murdered by a maniac at last ; but that that would be my fate, I never doubted for a moment.

" I was sitting half upright on. my little sofa, not daring to move — scarcely daring to breath. Thoughts of the past — thoughts of those near- and dear to me> whom I was never to see again, mingled with strange speculations as to w,ho might get the death vacancy, flashed like lightning through my brain.

" Feeble as I was then, the sweat of this death agony poured doAvn my face like drops of blood. Muttering such words of prayer as men's lips fashion in their direst extremity, I fell back on my pillow at list. " I was ju3t in time. Another second', and a bullet would have blown my brains out ; for at the moment when my head dropped, the madman fired point blank at me.

"I heard the- thud of the ball as it buried itself in the bulk-head at my side, and felt the wind of it across my face.

" With the instinct of self-preservation I law motionless as a corpse.

" One sharp slash of the cutlass, and the mosqxiito curtains around-me were cat down. And then— then I knew that Gurnock was standing over me. Never shall I forget the moments of horrible suspense which followed. Even now, sometimes, in. my sleep I feel that as;ony again. To die thus — I whom the Russian bullets had spared — who had since carried my life in my- hand so often and so long —to die like this, helpless, defenceless, after all!

" The- whole thing didn't occupy the half of th© time it has taken me to tell it you ; but- each one of those few moments dvtring which Gumock bent over me seemed an» age. " Death itself was better- than this death-agony, surely. More- than once I had determined to spring on him, and make one struggle, however feeble, for dear life. And I think I shoxild have done so, if a slight noise behind hitn had not started' the madman. He turned sharply round at once, and T opened my eyes. What followed passed so quickly that it was not till" afterwards that I fully understood it all.

" Farquhar had been roused, like myself, by the first pistol-shot : but, sleeping more heavily than I, it had taken him longer- to understand what all the row was about.. When, however, he saw Gurnock standing, cutlass in hand, beside my sofa, he kne-w he had but one chance to save me an^ himself. With his pillow in one hand, he crept cautiously to the foot of his berth, which, was nearest the table whereoi*- we had both laid our- revolvers, and pushing asidfr the curtains, stretched out his hand to grasp the weapon nearest him. The slight noise he nyi.de in doing so attracted Gurnock's attention.

" Raising his pistol the latter pulled the trigger a«»ain. The hammer fell, but no report followed. The barrel was either unloaded or had missed fire. This saved Farquhar's life.. Flinging- the cushion, which had served: him for a pillow, and which he still held in his left hand, full in the- madman's face, as the latter rushed at him, he ran in under his guard', and with fche heavy butt of his own revolver stopped Gurnock 'in his tracks ' by one well-directed blow between- the eyes.

"But the fight wasn't all ont of the caotain yet, and" he managed to drag his adversary down with him. I had sprung to my- feet the instant Gnrnock's back was turned, and now lacked away the heavy cutlass which had fallen from his hand as he went down.

" Once more-^smash ! came the butt end of Farquhap ? s pistol, and then the other lay motionless. And we- were saved !

" 'It was touch and go, though, Ramsay,' Farquhar said to me, when tardy assistance had come, and, bound hand and foot, our wrmli-be murderer lay nofcdeVl by any means, as T had at first supposed', bnfc bivahHin 1 ? heavily in a sort of stupor. 'It was touch and sro : fnr, you see, no one could tell that that barrel of his wasempty, and I was afraid to fire for fear of hitting you. However, all's well that ends well ! We shall be- at Hong Kong in another two hours ; take a pull at my flask, and.turn in> again, in the meantime. This beggar won't give us ■ any more trouble, and" the crew will get on just as well without him. I supposethey're used to thif* kind of thing.'

" And in ten minutes more the commissioner was asleep again, as though nothing unusual had happened. • We caught the steamer all right, and came back to England together — he and I. The voyage home set me up as good as new again, but it was a lonsf time before I could turn, in at night without a disagreeable recollection of what happened' to, m« on board the Tie*-Tiin#,

" And Captain Gurnock ? " asked some one, as "the colonel paused. " What becams of liim ? I suppose your friend the commissioner got him broke ? "• "Well, no, he didn't. He was still insensible when we left Mm. Farquhar thought ho had been punished enough, so he told me he should say nothing about j the affair. It wouldn't have been much use if. he had, I dare say. The captain was a good one to fight, and, for the rest,, there were queerer fish among the fellows the mandarins got to do their work event than he.

" However, he got broke, as I told you, for something or other afterwards, and died not long ago."