ShaoShu swallowed hard. “No, thank you, sir. I'll manage.” While it was painful, he'd done it before.
He pushed his robe off his shoulders, down to his waist, and gooseflesh formed across his back and arms in the cold night air. He quickly slathered the rotting beef tongue up one shoulder and down the other, then threw it aside.
ShaoShu shoved his head back through the opening and craned his neck in the darkness of the interior. He could see nothing. He slipped his right arm and part of his right shoulder into the window and groaned. “A little higher, please, sir.”
He felt Tonglong grasp his ankles, and slowly he began to rise. The moment his hips were in line with the opening, ShaoShu wrenched his right shoulder violently in toward the center of his chest. With a muffled cry and a loud crack, squish! he thrust his upper body through, his left arm and shoulder following with the help of the slick beef tongue juice.
He was in up to his waist.
ShaoShu took a deep breath, sweating profusely, trying to block out the tremendous pain in his dislocated right shoulder. Before he could make his next move, he felt Tonglong preparing to give him one final shove.
“No!” ShaoShu squeaked. “Not yet, sir!”
But it was too late. ShaoShu felt Tonglong twist him through the opening like a screw. An instant later, he landed in a heap on the cold stone floor, not having had a chance to pop his shoulder back into its socket. Without two arms to cushion his fall, his head struck the floor violently.
ShaoShu slipped into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 7
Charles sat on the deck of his sloop, straining his eyes in the dim light of a paraffin lamp. In one hand, he held a block of flint; in the other, a large stone hammer. Raising the hammer high, Charles brought it down with great precision against a subtle crack in the flint's side. A flake roughly the size of his thumbnail sheared off, landing at his feet in a shower of sparks.
Charles smiled. He loved knapping flints in the dark. If he had enough time, he would make a whole pile of flints for his Dutch mates to use in their pistols. That would be an appropriate gift in exchange for the hospitality he would surely receive.
With thoughts of Dutch delicacies racing through his mind, and his eyes on his work, Charles didn't see the others until they were standing on the bank not fifteen swimming strokes from his sloop.
“Ahoy, matey!” Malao said. “Permission to come aboard?”
Charles set down his tools and stared at them across the short span of water. What are they doing here already? he wondered. It had only been one day.
“Well?” Fu growled.
“Of course you can come aboard,” Charles said. “But what about Ying's mother?”
Someone coughed—a deep, wet cough—and a slender, attractive woman with long black wispy hair stepped forward from behind Ying. She bowed.
Charles was dumbstruck. It was WanSow, Ying's mother.
WanSow stumbled, and Ying grabbed her by the waist.
“Don't let her fool you, Charles,” Hok said gently. “She is not as strong as she might look. She needs treatment.”
“I am fine,” WanSow retorted, and Charles heard a slight gurgle in her voice.
“She has fluid in her lungs,” Hok explained. “Can you take us to the large apothecary in Hangzhou?”
“That is where you had planned to take her all along, isn't it?” Charles asked.
Hok nodded in the darkness. “Yes, I'd like to wait for her to get stronger, but we have to leave this location. WanSow believes others may come now that Tonglong has the treasure.”
“I don't understand,” Charles said.
“Tonglong stole a famous treasure hoard,” Ying replied. “It included a set of legendary white jade swords and a suit of white jade armor. The swords and armor are purely symbolic, but the treasure can be used to bribe any number of officials. Remember the Southern Warlord I told you about?”
“HaiZhe?” Charles said. “Yes. I remember that sniper's tattoo.”
“That's right,” Ying said. “My mother has told us that HaiZhe has been after that treasure and those powerful symbols for years, and he suspects that my mother knows where the treasure was hidden. I am certain no one was spying on us before Tonglong attacked, so the sniper must have arrived afterward. HaiZhe probably sent someone to follow Tonglong's ship, and once word got back that Tonglong came here, HaiZhe posted the sniper. As soon as Tonglong starts spreading the treasure around, or HaiZhe realizes that his sniper hasn't reported back, HaiZhe will come looking for my mother. We need to leave.”
“Aye, aye,” Charles said. He grabbed a stout rope and tied one end to the sloop's sturdy mast. Then he hurled the remaining rope to shore and grabbed a length of sailcloth. “Pull that rope taut and tie it to a tree. I'm going to rig up a sling to get WanSow aboard. With any luck, we'll make it to the apothecary before sunrise.”