'Put the lamp on the top of the bales,' said David at once. 'We must chance a fellow firing at it and smashing it altogether. Hung, post a man up here to watch. I'll go up and report progress, unless, of course, you'd like to, Dick.'
The latter shook his head vigorously, and was about to answer when another voice came from behind them in the alley-way. It was the Professor, jaunty and high-spirited as ever, a silent witness of the late conflict. He stepped from the foot of the ladder, and came towards them, turning the slide of a lantern he carried. And the light reflected from the narrow passage showed up everything distinctly--the dead Chinaman at the foot of the barricade; David on the ladder, and Dick and the other defenders at their posts. It even showed the huge splinter of wood half torn from the ladder by the bullet which had so nearly put an end to the existence of one of the party. And the Professor was as easily seen as any one. There was a bland smile on his clean-shaven face. His eyes sparkled; he laughed outright.
'Please don't move,' he said, coming closer. 'A more perfect picture I never beheld; but I do congratulate you all. You know I hate fighting, and always have done so; but when it's necessary, I can admire the men who show a good front. No need to report, David boy; my own eyes have shown me everything.'
Turning suddenly to the Chinamen, he spoke to them in their own language, which he knew as a native, praising them warmly, and sending the blood flying once more to their cheeks.
'A gallant fight, well organised and generalled,' he said, turning again to Dick. 'Whose idea was the ladder?'
'His,' came the curt answer. 'He fixed everything: David is a born leader.'
'I say!' came indignantly from our hero, who was still perched on his ladder.
'It's true,' came warmly from Dick, for the young fellow had formed a great opinion of David. Secretly he had admired the lad, partly for the courage which he knew he possessed, for had he not been instrumental in saving Dick's mother; and also there was the case of those burglars at Bond Street. But it was not pluck alone that roused his enthusiasm for our hero; it was his grit, his staunchness.
'Just fancy a fellow doing so much all on his own,' Dick had exclaimed more than once to the Professor. 'Many fellows of his age would have been browbeaten by that man who married his stepmother. Very few would have taken the post of lift-boy as he did. I've known young fellows sent up to London to make their way who would have turned up their noses at it, and because they could not get just the class of job that suited them would prefer to live with relatives and do nothing. That's out and out cadging. And here's David, still all alone, determined to go out to China to find a will which may never have existed.'