Then, by one consent, the four Chinamen leaped up, and waited for the prisoner to follow their example, but he lay still.
"If he has any gumption he won't move," whispered Barkins, who like myself was an interested spectator.
Mr Reardon walked to us.
"Silence, young gentlemen," he said sternly.

"Let us show these barbarians what dishipline is .-- Brute!" This last applied to one of the Chinamen, who said something to the prisoner, who merely wagged his tail, and then received a tremendous kick in the ribs.
He sprang up then like a wild-beast, but he was seized by as many as could get a grip of him, bundled to the gangway, and almost thrown down into the barge, where other men seized him and dragged him forward to where some spearmen stood ready on guard.
By this time another had been thrown down and chained.

He made no scruple about rising and walking to the side to be bundled down.
Another followed, and another, the grandees hardly glancing at what was going on, but standing coolly indifferent and fanning away, now and then making some remark about the ship, the guns, or the crew.
Seven had been chained, and the eighth was brought forward by two marines, seized, thrown down, and fettered.

Then, instead of allowing himself to be bundled into the boat as apathetically as the others, he gazed fiercely to right and left, and I saw that something was coming.
So did the indifferent-looking Chinese, for one of the most gorgeously dressed of the party whipped out a heavy curved sword, whose blade was broader at the end than near the hilt, and made for him; but, active as a cat, and in spite of the weight of his chains, the man made a series of bounds, knocked over two of the soldiers, and leaped at the gangway behind them, reached the top, and fell more than jumped over, to go down into the water with a heavy splash.
Half-a-dozen of the men leaped on to the rail, and stood looking down, before the captain could give an order; while a few words were shouted from the barge below.
The officer returned his sword, and began fanning himself again; the soldiers seized the next prisoner and began chaining him, but no one stirred to save the man overboard, and we all grasped the reason why,-- twenty pounds of iron fetters took him to the bottom like a stone.
I saw the captain frown as he said something to Mr Reardon, who merely shook his head.
"Ain't they going to lower a boat, sir ?" I whispered to Mr Brooke.
"We could do no good," he said.

"There are twenty fathoms of water out there, Herrick, and the man could not rise." The incident did not seem to discompose the Chinese, who disposed of the next prisoner.