CHAPTER VIII

IN COLLISION At noon the same day the _Hermione_, having filled up with oil fuel and taken on board the necessary stores, "weighed and proceeded in execution of previous orders," namely, to cruise northward along the coast of China and putting in to Amoy and Shanghai. The voyage promised to be of the nature of a "joy trip." British men-of-war on the China Station had very little serious work to do, for although there were two chief rival factions at war in the Chinese Republic and half a dozen lesser parties flyin…