"Well, I was a cadet for two years in that old packet—Reginald S. Hopkins, my tally—and I guess we have mutual acquaintances out there." "My name is Helston." "Helston!" ejaculated the American. "Why, I know your face—couldn’t guess where I’d seen it before seen your picture in every illustrated journal I’ve taken up for the last ten days—shake, sir, shake," and he grasped Helston’s hand warmly. "Very pleased to make your acquaintance. I reckon you’re just about the most talked-of man walking the face of this earth just now." The conversation naturally turned on the approaching expedition, in which Hopkins was keenly interested. "I guess I can give you some middling-sized information about those ships the Chinese ran ashore. I was out with the Japs at Wei-hai-wei, just looking round—kind of correspondent for a Boston journal—and went on board some of them. I reckon the silly idiot who bought that lot of scrap iron wished he had left ’em there. There ain’t a dockyard in the States that could make ’em keep pace with a funeral. Why, I went aboard one of the torpedo-boats—high and dry she was—I’m mighty inquisitive, I tell you—her boiler had burst and blown up her deck, when she went aground, I reckon. I’ve never seen such a mess as the engines were—two horrid staring corpses been there a week, too—ugh!" "Very lucky that I met you," Helston said eagerly. "I’ve telegraphed to a dozen men who were up there, and none know anything beyond doubtful rumours." "I guess most of the Europeans were just searching around about that particular time, and looting or getting quit of the place, if they’d been aiding the Pigtails," drawled the stranger. "You didn’t hear anything about the cruisers which went ashore, I suppose?" asked Helston. "Didn’t I! Didn’t I! I knocked up against a little Scotchman—chief engineer aboard the _Mao Yuen_ when her old skipper shoved her nose on shore and cut. He was just about in a hair-raising funk, for the mandarins wanted his head, and the Japs his body. I packed him off in a steamer, and he was mighty glad to take his head with him, you bet!" "Did he tell you anything of the condition of his ship?" asked Helston, "for she is one of those which have disappeared." "Didn’t he!" roared the American, smacking his thigh. "Why, all the time he was under my wing he kept shouting out, ’Oh God! Oh God!—two hundred dead bodies on board, burning fore and aft—they’ll kill me if I go on deck—the boilers won’t stand the pressure, and my home’s in Glasgy’. He was just on being properly crazed, and during the night woke me by shrieking, ’We’re on the rocks, we’re on the rocks—the steam-pipe’s burst, and I can’t get on deck—the steam, the steam’, and I found him trying to climb up the wall."