By the time we could begin our work again, it was very dark, but we knew we should soon have a bright moon; so we set to work cheerfully, and had succeeded in collecting and lashing together a good many spars as a raft, when, to our great surprise, we found ourselves surrounded by Chinese boats, two of them large ones, and full of soldiers. We all saw that resistance, if they attacked us, would be perfectly useless, and thought it would be better to trust to them than to the waves, so as they all seemed more intent upon plunder than upon us, Twizell and I, two or three of the marines, two of the first-class boys, and the greater part of the Lascars, jumped into one boat, and the rest, with Webb and Wombwell, got into another. The Chinese wished us very much to get out again, but this we would not think of doing, as stopping by the vessel for another tide was quite impossible. Finding that we were determined not to remain by the wreck, the Chinese gave in, and shoved off. To our great surprise, we had not gone a few yards when our junk was aground. The other boat made sail, and stood away. The men in our junk made signs for us to get out, when we again refused, fearing, if we did, they would leave us there; and not liking the idea of remaining on a sand, which we knew the flood tide would cover. To have stopped by the wreck would have been preferable to this. We continued sitting in the boat, until one of the Chinese jumped out, and, taking his lantern, made signs to us to follow him; this we consented to do, and taking care not to let our guide get away from us, we went across the sand for about two miles, with the water sometimes above our knees, and sometimes only a little above our ankles. At last we arrived at another large boat, which was aground and apparently waiting for the tide to float her. Our guide made signs for us to get into this boat, and that we should be taken ashore in her. This we did, and lay down to take a little rest, grateful that we had been enabled to save our lives, at least for the present. We hoped that by some means or other we might reach Ningpo, where two English ships were cruising, and we knew that, if we could only once reach them, we were perfectly safe; but we had a very vague idea where we were, though we half suspected we were on the island of Ningpo; we afterwards found our suppositions to be correct. It was now midnight, and when we left the wreck we could walk on her side, it being only six or eight inches below the surface. FOOTNOTES: [1] Note 1. [2] These two boys told me, when in prison at Ningpo, that when the brig upset, everything in the cabin fell to the starboard side, where the child was sleeping; that they could not get out at the door, but got out at the skylight, leaving the poor baby to its fate, and got into the boat, which was then on the starboard quarter. [3] Note 2. CHAPTER II.