Throne of Jade Page 0,34

the gentleman for his kind words, sir; and tell him that I hope you will all find yourselves quite comfortable."

Ye Bing bowed his head and said, through the translator, "Thank you, sir, we are already much more so than on our journey here. Four ships were required to carry us here, and one proved unhappily slow."

"Captain Riley, I understand you have gone round the Cape of Good Hope before?" Hammond interrupted: rudely, and Laurence glanced at him in surprise.

Riley also looked startled, but politely turned back to answer him, but Franks, who had spent nearly all of the last two days below in the stinking hold, directing the stowage of all the baggage, said in slightly drunken irreverence, "Four ships only? I am surprised it did not take six; you must have been packed like sardines."

Ye Bing nodded and said, "The vessels were small for so long a journey, but in the service of the Emperor all discomfort is a joy, and in any case, they were the largest of your ships in Canton at the time."

"Oh; so you hired East Indiamen for the passage?" Macready asked; he was the Marine lieutenant, a rail-thin, wiry stump of a man who wore spectacles incongruous on his much-scarred face. There was no malice but undeniably a slight edge of superiority in the question, and in the smiles exchanged by the naval men. That the French could build ships but not sail them, that the Dons were excitable and undisciplined, that the Chinese had no fleet at all to speak of, these were the oft-repeated bywords of the service, and to have them so confirmed was always pleasant, always heartening.

"Four ships in Canton harbor, and you filled their holds with baggage instead of silk and porcelain; they must have charged you the earth," Franks added.

"How very strange that you should say so," Ye Bing said. "Although we were traveling under the Emperor's seal, it is true, one captain did try to demand payment, and then even tried to sail away without permission. Some evil spirit must have seized hold of him and made him act in such a crazy manner. But I believe your Company officials were able to find a doctor to treat him, and he was allowed to apologize."

Franks stared, as well he might. "But then why did they take you, if you did not pay them?"

Ye Bing stared back, equally surprised to have been asked. "The ships were confiscated by Imperial edict. What else could they have done?" He shrugged, as if to dismiss the subject, and turned his attention back to the dishes; he seemed to think the piece of intelligence less significant than the small jam tartlets Riley's cook had provided with the latest course.

Laurence abruptly put down knife and fork; his appetite had been weak to begin with, and now was wholly gone. That they could speak so casually of the seizure of British ships and property - the forced servitude of British seamen to a foreign throne - For a moment almost he convinced himself he had misunderstood: every newspaper in the country would have been shrieking of such an incident; Government would surely have made a formal protest. Then he looked at Hammond: the diplomat's face was pale and alarmed, but unsurprised; and all remaining doubt vanished as Laurence recalled all of Barham's sorry behavior, so nearly groveling, and Hammond's attempts to change the course of the conversation.

Comprehension was only a little slower in coming to the rest of the British, running up and down the table on the backs of low whispers, as the officers murmured back and forth to one another. Riley's reply to Hammond, which had been going forward all this time, slowed and stopped: though Hammond prompted Riley again, urgently, asking, "Did you have a rough crossing of it? I hope we do not need to fear bad weather along the way," this came too late; a complete silence fell, except for young Tripp chewing noisily.

Garnett, the master, elbowed the boy sharply, and even this sound failed. Sun Kai put down his wineglass and looked frowning up and down along the table; he had noticed the change of atmosphere: the feel of a brewing storm. There had already been a great deal of hard drinking, though they were scarcely halfway through the meal, and many of the officers were young, and flushing now with mortification and anger. Many a Navy man, cast on shore during an intermittent peace or by a