A Chinese Command
Frobisher is a cashiered Royal Navy ex-officer. He is approached to run some arms to the rebels in Korea, and thus make his fortune. This fails, and the arms get into the hands of the legitimate government. After some vicissitudes he finds himself in China, and talking to the above admiral, who offers him the command of a battleship, with the prospect of taking part in a war against Japan. He does this but loses his ship in a storm towards the end of the book. Meanwhile he has found the lost millions hidden away by Genghiz Khan many centuries beforehand. He has no hesitation in purloining these, and eventually on getting back to England, buying his way back into grace by presenting the nation with a number of brand-new battleships, for which bit of sleaze he is given a baronetcy, and restored to the Navy List.
Approx. 103,890 words.
d or two with you.'
"Naturally, Dick, I was a little astonished," proceeded Murray, "but I must confess that I had become vastly interested in the little man, and, as offers of employment sometimes come from the most unlikely sources, like a drowning man clutching at a straw I determined to hear what he had to say. Possibly it might lead to something; and in any case I felt that I should do no harm by listening to him.
"`I think I can spare you a few minutes,' I remarked. `What is it you wish to see me about?'
"`You're a seaman, aren't you?' he said, answering my question with another.
"`Yes,' I replied, `I am.'
"`Navy man, too, unless I'm much mistaken,' was his next remark.
"`Well,' I said, rather hesitatingly, `I was a Navy man--a lieutenant-- not so very long ago, but I had the misfortune to lose my ship under circumstances for which, I must say, in justice to myself, I think I was hardly to blame. However, the members of the court martial took a different view of