Oddly, Tonglong staggered wildly, and he, too, toppled over unconscious, onto the deck. Confused, ShaoShu stared at him and saw that one of his cheeks and his ear on that side of his face were badly powder-burned. Also, the collar of his robe was on fire. Lei's second pistol had discharged right next to Tonglong's head, and the concussion had knocked him out while the blast had ignited his robe.
Lei dropped to his knees and patted Tonglong down, quickly extinguishing the flames. Then he did a curious thing. He looked around to make sure he was alone; then he snapped the cord Tonglong wore around his neck, slipping the special key into one of his holsters.
ShaoShu curled up as tightly as he could in the rigging, hoping Lei wouldn't see him, when he saw that there was one more Round Eye still in the small boat. The Round Eye pushed his fallen comrade off of himself, climbed over the rail, and leaped onto the deck, a long sword in one hand.
“Lei, look out!” ShaoShu cried.
Lei's expression changed to one of genuine surprise as he looked up to see the Round Eye charging toward him. Lei reached beneath his right pant leg, pulled out a small pistol, and fired.
The lead ball struck the Round Eye in the face, and he dropped to the deck.
Lei blew the smoke out of his pistol's short barrel and glared up at ShaoShu. He did not look happy. He pointed to the holster that held Tonglong's key, raised a finger to his lips as if to silence ShaoShu, then made a pretend pistol with his fingers, aiming it at ShaoShu and dropping his thumb like a pistol's hammer.
ShaoShu got the message.
As he was trying to decide whether he should climb down, ShaoShu was nearly thrown from the rigging by a violent KAAA-BOOOOOOM!
A huge explosion tore through the side of the Round Eye's ship, and a fountain of water rose high into the air. The schooner began to sink instantly. Charles must have rigged an explosion inside the boat's hold, below the waterline. Soldiers began to jump into the water and swim back to Tonglong's man-o-war, and Round Eye sailors swam toward shore. The suction created by the sinking ship pulled many beneath the waves, and some, mostly soldiers, never resurfaced. Before ShaoShu could count to one hundred, the schooner had vanished.
The surviving soldiers flooded onto the warship's deck and began to cheer and sing. Their victory was complete, and they hadn't even had to call in the soldiers on the merchant vessels still waiting outside the cove.
Tonglong regained consciousness amid the festivities, with Lei at his side and a large group of men staring down at him. He did not look pleased. ShaoShu was still in the rigging, but he came down the moment Lei pointed up at him.
Tonglong ordered Lei and ShaoShu into his private cabin, and he took a seat behind his writing desk.
“Start talking, ShaoShu,” Tonglong said. “Last I knew, Lei was questioning your loyalty and you were tied up in the hold. How did you escape?”
ShaoShu explained how his mouse had chewed through his ropes and how he untied LoBak when the battle began, because LoBak had said that they needed to go onto the deck in case the boat sank. ShaoShu then told how LoBak leaped overboard in the thick smoke of the warship's cannons to escape and how he chased after LoBak in order to report back to Lei what LoBak was up to. ShaoShu said that he saw LoBak climb onto the Round Eye's ship and begin talking with a girl and a teenager with a tattooed face when the three of them were killed by a wave of cannon blasts. ShaoShu finished the story by holding out the jade crane. “I climbed onto the Round Eye's boat to see if LoBak really was dead. I took this from the dead girl.”
Tonglong didn't look convinced. He took the crane and stared at it intently. “Why did you bring me this?”
“I actually took it for myself, sir. I like it. It's shiny. But you can have it, if you want.”
Tonglong's eyes narrowed. “Do you know the name Hok?”
“I know the word, sir. It's a bird. A crane, like the one in your hand.”
“What about Ying?”
“Eagle, sir? I don't believe I've ever seen an eagle.”
Tonglong shook his head. “What did the teenager's tattooed face look like?”
“Kind of like a dragon, sir. It was hard to see with all the smoke.”
“Hmm,” Tonglong said. “You didn't intentionally help LoBak escape, did you, ShaoShu?”
ShaoShu shook his head.
“With all due respect, sir,” Lei said, “I would like to say that I no longer question ShaoShu's intentions. I know I had my suspicions, but he has recently proven himself to me. He saved my life and quite possibly yours, too.”
“How so?” Tonglong asked.
“The Round Eyes who came over in the small boat—one of them nearly succeeded in taking my life with his sword, and being unconscious, you would surely have been next. ShaoShu warned me, giving me time to kill the foreigner.”