This first barrier was just opposite the lower end of the South Fort. Passing cautiously between two of the spikes, the daring explorers rowed up the river for a quarter of a mile, when they came to a second barrier, formed by a heavy cable of cocoa fibre and two chain cables stretched across the channel, twelve feet apart, and supported at every thirty feet by a floating boom securely anchored up and down stream. Two of the boats were left to fix a mine under the middle of this floating barrier, while Willes pushed on further into the darkness with the third. Just above the bend of the river he came to a third barrier, formed of two huge rafts, moored so as to leave only a narrow zigzag channel in mid-stream, this passage being still further secured with iron stakes. [Illustration: DEFENCES OF THE PEI-HO, 1859.] Willes got out on one of the rafts and, crawling on hands and knees, examined it carefully, and decided that mere ramming with a gunboat’s prow would not be enough to displace it. As he crouched on the raft he could see the Chinese sentries on the river bank, but was, happily, unseen by them. Returning to his boat, he dropped down to the second barrier. The mine was ready, and having lighted its fuse the boats pulled down the stream to the flotilla. The explosion revealed their presence to the Chinese, and a couple of harmless cannon shots were fired at them from the South Fort. The plucky little expedition had been a complete success; but before morning the Chinese had repaired the gap blown by the mine in the floating boom. [Illustration: “‘WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING, YOU RASCALS?’” (_p. 30_).] Early on Saturday, June 25th, the gunboat flotilla cleared for action. Admiral Hope’s orders were that nine of the ships should anchor close to the first barrier and bring their guns to bear on the forts, while the two others broke through the barriers and cleared the way for a further advance. High water was at 11.30 a.m., and it was expected that all would be in position by that time; but the difficulty of working so many ships in a narrow channel, not more than 200 yards wide, with a strong current and with mud banks covered by shallow water on each side, was so great that it was not till after one that the ships had anchored, and even then two of them, the _Banterer_ and the _Starling_, were stuck fast on the mud in positions from which it was not easy to get their guns to bear. All this time the forts had not shown the least sign of life. Their embrasures were closed; a few black flags flew on the upper works, but not a soul was to be seen on the mud ramparts. It was a bright summer day, blazing hot, with a cloudless sky of deep blue overhead, and all round the little flotilla the dark waters of the river came swirling down on the ebb, so that already patches of yellow mud were showing here and there under the rush-covered banks.