It was a curiously impressive little scene in Captain Helston’s fore-cabin that night—the polished table littered with documents and lighted by the hanging crimson-shaded electric lamps; the grey clouds of tobacco smoke eddying among the steel deck-beams overhead and curling through the after 12-pounder gun-ports; the glitter of the polished brass-work of the gun-mountings, one on each side of the cabin—a grim reminder of war; and the serious, eager faces of Helston and his three Commanders as they bent over the various papers and argued their plans and proposals. The last time they had all met together round that table they had drunk success to the squadron, and gaily hoped that the pirates would give them a chance of "doing something". Now they had done something—one of their three destroyers was at the bottom, and five of her men had gone down with her; nine of the _Strong Arm’s_ men were dead (three had died of their wounds), and thirty or more were wounded—and though they had destroyed a cruiser, still she had not previously entered into their calculations, and her appearance on the scene rudely interfered with their plans and expectations of only meeting old, half-repaired Chinese men-of-war. There might be more like her, acquired secretly, and with the memory of those nine bodies waiting to be buried in the quiet cemetery in the Happy Valley next morning, and the unknown strength of the enemy they were now going to meet, the council took their places round Helston’s table with a certain solemnity. Captain Helston himself, gaunt and thin, sat at the head, his long, thin face haggard in the electric light, his right hand nervously fidgeting with some papers in front of him, and his left arm still bandaged to his side, his empty sleeve sewn across his chest. At the other end of the table sat Hunter of the _Strong Arm_, a man with a great red face and great red hands, a clumsy-looking giant, more grieved at the loss of his men than elated at the destruction of the pirate cruiser. A typical bluff, good-hearted sailor was he, not devoid of brains, but seldom troubling to use them. To see him in a football "scrum", and to hear his lusty roars of encouragement to his side, did one good, and one knew immediately what kind of man he was. Use his brains! Why? God had given him a great body which never knew fatigue, a mind which never knew fear, and he was one of the "range-up-alongside-and-blow- the-beggar-out-of-water-and-if-he-won’t-sink-ram-him" school of naval officer. Antiquated in his ideas he may have been, but he was possessed, as are most men like him, of an enormous personal magnetism, and every man Jack of his crew would follow him to the death.