“Most Chinese villages are walled. There will be at least one gate facing the river and two or three on the inland side. It is often awkward to make a landing under fire from boats. I suggest we divide our force. If you approve, Captain, I will take ten of the most active men and disembark here. We can fetch a wide circuit of the town, and it will not be difficult to make our way across the rice fields and ditches. You can put the rest of them in one boat and row up in front of the town, waiting in the stream until we are in a position to make a rush. Then we will drive home a simultaneous attack in front and rear.” “Napoleon could not beat it,” heartily exclaimed O’Shea. “And if ye shoot fast enough and kick up a terrible racket, they will think ye are an army. What will the signal be?” “Three rifle shots.” “Ay, ay, Mr. Bannister. ’Tis the sensible plan that ye take command of the army while I hoist the rear-admiral’s pennant over the navy. We have no reserves, but many a famous victory would have been missing from history if the lads that won them had waited for the reserves to come up.” The chosen ten forsook the boats and tramped off behind their soldierly leader. A few minutes later the expedition of Captain O’Shea got under way, his boat hugging the muddy shore and dodging behind its ragged indentations. It was not long before a wide curve of the river disclosed to view the tiled roofs, the crumbling brick wall, and the towered gate-ways of a village. In front of it were several rickety wharfs, or stagings, built of bamboo poles lashed together. At the outer end of one of these lay a two-masted junk, her hawse-holes painted to resemble two huge eyes. The tide had begun to ebb, and the junk was already heeled so that her deck sloped toward the river. This craft appeared to be deserted. No pigtailed heads bobbed behind the immensely heavy bulwarks. If the army officer had been a Napoleon, Captain O’Shea showed himself a Nelson. “Pull like blazes for the junk yonder,” he shouted to his men. “We will pile aboard her and take cover.” The junk was directly in front of the gate-way in the village wall, and perhaps a hundred yards distant from it. The intervening space was beach, a miry roadway, and a disorderly row of shanties made of drift-wood, with a few boats hauled out for repairs. The heavy timbers of the junk made her a nautical fortress, and the high sides would be difficult of direct assault.