"This plot was as remarkable for its simplicity as for its cold-blooded
barbarity. On the evening before the barque sailed, the three seamen,
Nilsson, Foucault, and Parratt, proceeded to the Danish ship with a
supply of whisky, made the ship-keeper royally drunk, and locked him up
in an empty berth. Meanwhile Wo-li made a secret communication to the
mandarin to the effect that certain stolen property, believed to be his,
had been secreted in the hold of the empty ship. Thereupon the mandarin
came down hot-foot to the quay-side, and was received on board by the
three seamen, who had got the covers off the after-hatch in readiness.
Parratt now ran down the iron ladder to show the way, and the mandarin
followed; but when they reached the lower deck, and looked down the
hatch into the black darkness of the lower hold, he seems to have taken
fright, and begun to climb up again. Meanwhile Nilsson had made a
running bowline in the end of a loose halyard that was rove through a
block aloft, and had been used for hoisting out the cargo. As the
mandarin came up, he leaned over the coaming of the hatch, dropped the
noose over the Chinaman's head, jerked it tight, and then he and
Foucault hove on the fall of the rope.
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