He seemed to know a good deal about these. He had formed one of a working-party a fortnight ago to unload a captured ship laden with tinned meat and flour, and they had to leave a large part of it in the open, covered with tarpaulins, because the go-downs were already full. "At the end of the time each man was allowed to take away what he wanted," finished A Tsi, whilst the Chinaman spread his hands apart and tried to express a vast quantity. At each question there would be a rapid flow of queries and answers in Chinese between A Tsi and the prisoner, the latter gesticulating excitedly to explain his answers, and, whilst the former was interpreting, he would try to follow him with pantomimic gesture and alterations of expression, looking from one to another in an imploring manner. He was asked the number of men on the island. He could not tell. "Many?" "Yes, a great many." "A thousand?" "Yes, more than a thousand." "Two thousand?" He screwed up his face and evidently did his best to calculate. No, he could not tell; a thousand, yes; but two thousand he could not say, and solemnly shook his head long after A Tsi had finished. Being a sailor, he could give more definite information about the ships. There were four cruisers and eight or nine torpedo-boats, not counting the one to which he had belonged nor the two that were wrecked. "Has he seen the two destroyers, and are they damaged?" Yes, he had seen them come into the harbour, and many men had been sent aboard them, but he did not know whether they were damaged. The names of three of the cruisers were _Yao Yuen_, _Mao Yuen_, and _Tu Ping_. These were the three of which Ping Sang had originally informed Helston. Another he mentioned, the _Hong Lu_, was evidently the cruiser which had beaten off "No. 2" and "No. 3". "Ask him if they are very fast." "_Yao Yuen, Mao Yuen_?" and he shook his head. "_Tu Ping_?" he shook his head still more vigorously. "_Hong Lu_?" and he opened his hands quickly and nodded, nodding so fast that Cummins, who had just entered the cabin, with the inevitable toothpick in his mouth, chuckled "He! he! he! you’ll lose your pigtail, old chap, if you aren’t more careful." "What speed can she go?" No; he did not know. "As fast as a torpedo-boat?" He drew in his breath with a whistling noise, and tried to show by gestures her extreme speed. "What size is she?" He did not know, nor what guns she carried. He was taken on deck to look at the _Strong Arm_, lying quietly half a mile away, and then brought down again. No; she was not so large, but how large he could not say. As to the forts, all that could be got out of him was that there was one on each side of the entrance, and, as far as he knew, none anywhere else. He did not even know how many guns they had. "Have they done much practice firing from them?" Yes; he had heard them many times lately, but his knowledge on all these points was vague in the extreme.