Chapter III: Part 3

I thought that now it might be possible to capture the remnants of that sail, so, making a rope fast round my waist, and telling Dobson to come with me, I scrambled to the foot of the mast. Whilst he stood by to "pay out" I chose a moment when the big yard over my head was still, climbed on to it, swung myself across it, and, holding on with arms and legs, worked my way along it slowly. It tried to shake me off every half-minute. Once it managed to get rid of my knees, whilst I clung like grim death, my legs dangling almost in the water. Then it tossed me like a feather, and I caught it again with my knees, waiting a moment till it was possible to wriggle along still farther. I managed to crawl almost twenty feet from the mast. That was far enough for my purpose. I wanted to secure my rope to it there--the rope round my waist--but that was the trouble; directly I let go with one hand, off I was jerked, just as if the beastly sail and yard were waiting their opportunity.

For a second I hung by one arm, my body actually in the water, then the sail, billowing up, lifted me with it, and I clung to that yard like a fly. There was a gap just below me, beneath the yard, where the sail had torn itself away from its lashing. I wriggled through it and over the yard again, the rope of course coming along after me, and by waiting my opportunity I managed another wriggle round the yard. There I was, with a turn of the rope round it and myself, secured to it like a pig lashed to a pole. However, I could not be jerked off and could use one hand. Looking down I saw Dobson yelling encouragement; the Arabs were looking at me with frightened faces.

Dobson paid out the rope very handsomely, and in a couple of minutes I managed to take another turn round the yard, secure it, and unlash myself. Then, shinning and clinging like a limpet as the yard waved about, wriggling backwards when it was quiet, I managed to reach the mast and clambered down on deck.

"That's done 'im in the eye right enough!" Dobson shouted enthusiastically, as he grabbed me by the feet. '"Im" was the shamel.

Together we led that rope aft, passed it through a block under the lee gunwale, took a turn round a cleat, and the four of us tried to haul the yard on board, hauling for all we were worth.

We won a few inches at a time, between squalls, and another turn round the cleat would prevent the yard dragging them out again. Slowly, inch by inch, the end of it came closer to us, and at every inch the dhow would heel over a little more. However, I knew how much she would stand by now, so cared not a jot.

However, at last the yard and sail beat us. It was all we could do to hold in what we had won; not another inch could we gain. Then, to our intense delight, the six Arabs came aft and clapped on too.

"Go it, lads!" I yelled, and, working like one man, we pulled the yard towards us until the peak of it was close to the railings round the stern.

Dobson scrambled up with a coil of rope, lassoed it, and captured it for good and all.

It was grand.

"Now lower it!" I yelled, and we scrambled for'ard to the mast, Arabs and all, slacked off the main halyards, and down it slid.

The remnant of the sail made a last attempt to escape, then draggled over the lee side, hanging down in the water--beaten.

No one wanted an order; Dobson, Wiggins, Jaffa, and myself, and every one of those Arabs, flung ourselves on to it to prevent it filling again, clutching and pulling till, in a minute or two, it was all on board, lashed to the yard, and as harmless as a handkerchief.

The dhow now came on a level keel, and, her stern paying off before the wind, our bows pointed into the sea. You can imagine what a relief this was after we had been rolling over on our beam-ends for so long.

However, she could not face the seas, and we were soon being spun round and round again.

"A sea-anchor; that's what she wants!" Dobson shouted. "That'll steady her, sir; she'll be like a cradle when she's got one."

There was plenty of timber on the fore hatch, so we unlashed it, and, making half a dozen long balks fast to a big grass hawser we found in the bows, we tipped them overboard, or allowed the seas to wash them overboard--whichever happened first--one after the other. As the dhow drifted to leeward so much faster than they did, the hawser soon tautened out, and brought our bows round into the wind.

Jolly proud we all were of that sea-anchor. It sounds easy enough to make, but if you had seen us trying to prevent those planks and balks of timber taking "charge" whilst we were passing the grass hawser round each one singly, leaping away as they tore themselves out of our hands and tried to break our legs, you would realize that it was not the simple matter it sounds.

We must have been struggling with it for at least an hour, up to our waists in water most of that time, and were thoroughly exhausted by the time we had paid out the whole of the hawser.

But we were now riding head to sea, our decks were not washed by the waves, and when we gathered on the poop to rest after our exhausting work we were as comfortable, as Dobson said, "as fleas in a blanket".

*CHAPTER V*

*My First Capture*

With that sea-anchor keeping our bows up to wind'ard, the worst of our troubles seemed to be over. My wrist watch had been broken in that first melee, so we did not know what time it was. From the height of the sun we guessed it to be nearly noon.

I climbed to the mast head. Not a sign of the _Bunder Abbas_ could I see; in fact, the whole circle of the horizon was empty but for ourselves, and as there was absolutely nothing to be done (for it would have been madness to hoist a scrap of sail, and as for trying to make a jury-rudder, we simply could not have done it whilst we were pitching and tossing so violently) we four sat comfortably on the poop, dried ourselves, and watched the Arabs squatting close to the foot of the mast. They had asked Jaffa's permission to search for food, and had found some dried dates. They seemed to enjoy them, and the sight of food of any sort made us remember that we had not had any that day, and that we were as hungry as hunters.

Jaffa found a large store of these dates under the poop, and, though they looked unappetizing to a degree, we enjoyed them hugely, washing them down with another drink out of that kerosene tin.

I was so hungry that I could have eaten a cat.

The sun was now blazing down on us. Unfortunately we had not brought our helmets or topees, having left the _Bunder Abbas_ at daybreak. Our caps were little, if any, protection from it, in spite of our constantly dipping them into the sea, and my head was burning and throbbing. Salt water got into that wound, and I did not dare to take off the handkerchief for fear of it bleeding again. Wiggins complained a good deal of his ribs.

The nakhoda, too, recovered consciousness, and begged for water, sitting up and moaning when he saw all the wreckage round him. He had such a cruel, cunning face that I could not trust him for'ard with the crew, but kept him aft with us. He looked as if it would have given him a great deal of joy to cut our throats, and no doubt it would.

Every half-hour or so Dobson or I would go for'ard to see that the hawser to the sea-anchor was not chafing in the "fairway," taking stock of the weather at the same time. Every time I said: "I think it's easing off," Dobson would shake his head; "'E ain't finished with 'is tantrums yet, sir."

However, at last I felt sure that the gale was moderating. There were not such high waves, they did not boil down on us so furiously, they were longer too, not so steep, and we were certainly riding more easily. Dobson at last agreed: "'E's in a good 'umour, I do believe."

The nakhoda's wicked old face was a good enough barometer. As the wind and the sea fell, so did his face look more glum, until at last, when there was no manner of doubt that the gale was fast dying down, he scowled angrily. What idea he had in his cunning old head, I did not know.

"We'll be able to start rigging a jury-rudder soon," I told Dobson, "hoist a bit of sail, and bear away towards Jask."

I had given up any possibility of beating up to the _Bunder Abbas_. If I could get into Jask the political agent would soon charter me a dhow to go back and look for her.

Well, we made that jury-rudder. It took us two hard-working hours, and without the help of the Arab crew we could not have made it. A clumsy thing it was; a triangle made of balks of timber, with one long projecting plank at each corner for the steering ropes. We also managed to secure the lower after end of what remained of the sail, binding a rope round it to act, later on, as a sheet.

There were still six able-bodied Arabs, not counting the nakhoda. The wounded man (the one who could not walk) had been washed overboard by the first big sea which struck us. The wounds of the others were not worth troubling about. As far as I remember, Dobson's fists had made them; certainly they had not been struck with bullets, because Jaffa was the only one on board who had shown himself able to hit a haystack at ten yards.

Having completed the jury-rudder we rested until the falling wind and sea allowed us to use it. We took it "turn and turn about" to keep watch, Jaffa and I, Dobson and Wiggins--nothing to do and two to do it. The only thing we had to do was to keep an eye on the treacherous old nakhoda.

The afternoon slipped by; the sun began to set in all its grandeur, and only a few gloriously-tinted clouds, scudding across the sky, were left to remind us that nature had been in such an angry mood. The wind and the sea seemed to sink to rest with the sun; only an occasional sobbing gust moaned through the rigging, and, rising from the sea, a huge full moon, like a burnished silver plate, set deep in a dark indigo sky, flooded us with light.

It was now possible to try to bring the dhow under control; so, first of all, overboard went the jury-rudder, with two hawsers lashed to those projecting planks, and led to either side of the poop. Then we hoisted a little of our tattered sail, cut away the grass hawser to the sea-anchor, and, the breeze--it was only a breeze now--blowing steadily and softly from the north-west, filling the sail gently, we squared the yard and let her "rip".

But the jury-rudder would not act as a rudder. It was too clumsy, and the ropes attached to it too heavy. Twenty men on each would have been scarcely sufficient to work it. However, it kept our stern to the wind--acting as a drag on the dhow--and we scudded merrily away to the south-east at about three knots. I imagined that we were about eighty miles to the south-west of Jask, and hoped that as the breeze backed, as it generally did for some time after a shamel, we should be presently blown away to the east.

Up to now the Arab crew had been helping quite willingly: but whilst they were working aft with the jury-rudder I noticed that the sly old nakhoda took every opportunity of speaking to them, and that afterwards, though they still worked, they worked sullenly and unwillingly.

I had thought of allowing him to go for'ard with them, but after this, and after Jaffa had warned me not to do so ("He only make a mischief," he said), I kept him aft where he was, much as I disliked his company.

I rather fancy that that knock on the head had made me sleepy. I could hardly keep my eyes open during my first turn of watch-keeping. It was beautifully cool, the "shamel" was now nothing more than a respectable breeze, and the long subsiding swell made a most heavenly sight in the moonlight. Jaffa and I talked--it was the only way we could keep awake--he telling me more about the peculiarities of the winds which blew in this region. Then he went on to tell me some of the experiences he had had during the nine years he had served in the British service as an interpreter. Though they were very interesting I was more interested in him and in his quiet aristocratic method of telling them. After the wonderfully cool way he had handled his Mauser pistol that morning he was not to me the same Jaffa who had boarded the dhow with us.

Dobson and Wiggins relieved us presently. "The jury-rudder is keeping our stern into the wind well enough," I told Dobson; "the sea is nearly smooth, the wind mostly gone, and the Arabs are all sound asleep--the nakhoda under the poop, the rest for'ard."

Then I slept like a log until Dobson called me for another spell of watch, and Jaffa and I were again on duty.

It was as wonderful, enchanting a sight as I have ever seen. Above us the great, dazzling, silent moon; around us the sea, a rippling surface of silvery white, stretching away to the circle of the horizon. The little dhow, with her white deck and black shadows, was the centre of it, her sail a great patch of white, casting its clear-cut shadow to starboard over the bows and over the water under them, as sharply cut where it fell on the water as across the deck.

In the bows, beyond the foot of the sail, the sleeping Arabs lay in its dark shadow; in the stern, in the shadow of the poop, Dobson and Wiggins were soon fast asleep--the nakhoda had crawled under the poop and slept there.

It was all so silent and so beautiful--the embodiment of all that is lovely and peaceful and good in nature--that the perils and tragedies of the day before seemed almost unreal, and it seemed impossible to realize that, unless we kept wideawake and alert for the first suspicious movement, we might have our throats cut at any moment.

What we could realize--only too painfully--was that we were very hungry.

Probably that helped to keep us awake more than anything else.

At any rate we did keep awake until I thought that two hours had gone by, when I woke Dobson, coiled down on deck again, and was asleep in a second.

Something touched me. I woke up. Dobson was bending over me. "There's summat going on for'ard, sir. I don't like the sound of it. I've been for'ard under the foot of that 'ere sail twice in the past 'arf-'our, and those noises leave off. I find them Arabs a-lying there as quiet as mice in a nest, and I don't understand it."

I rubbed my eyes, sat up, and rose to my feet--very stiff I was.

The sea was absolutely calm now; the moonlight flooded our decks. Every seam and knot in the planks was distinct; every stitch and ragged tear showed out clearly in the drooping sail, whose shadow swallowed up the whole of the bows.

"Listen, sir!" Dobson whispered, pointing for'ard.

I heard a soft rasping sound, as if pieces of rough wood were being drawn across each another. I crept for'ard close to the gunwale, and had not taken two paces before the noise ceased.

Dobson joined me. "It always leaves off directly I start to go for'ard, sir."

"Come along," I said, and we both walked along the deck, and, lifting the foot of the sail, peered underneath. When our eyes were accustomed to the darkness we could see the figures of Arabs huddled up close together on top of the fore hatch. We waited for several minutes, but no one stirred.

We crept back again.

"Where's Wiggins?" I asked, and Dobson pointed under the poop. "He felt so bad with his ribs, sir, that I told him to go and lie down."

"See if the nakhoda is under there," I told him, and he crept in.

He came back again, white in the face. "'E's not there, sir."

I crawled under myself, crawled all over the beastly place. He certainly was not there.

"I never saw 'im go, sir!" Dobson whispered apologetically.

However, he was gone; there could be no doubt about that. He was certain to have crept for'ard among his men, and it was as certain that mischief would be brewing.

"We'll turn 'em out and see what it is," I said, pulling my revolver from its holster and opening the breech to see that it was loaded.

We went for'ard again, and as we bent down under the sail, our revolvers in our hands, there was a rush of bare feet and the whole crowd of them leapt at us. Three or four were clinging to me, throttling me round the neck, clutching my arms to my sides, and pulling my legs from under me. In spite of all my struggles I was thrown to the deck on my face; someone bent back my wrist to wrench the revolver away, but before it was dragged out of my hand I managed to get my finger on the trigger and pulled it. As my head whirled with the choking of those iron fingers round my throat I did not know whether I had actually fired it or not. I was banged on the deck, twisted round and round under a heap of grunting Arabs; something was forced into my mouth; I nearly lost consciousness, but when the grasp on my throat was relaxed I managed to draw a breath of air and found myself next to Dobson, both of us lashed up like mummies, lying on our backs on some coils of rope.

We were both gagged, unable to speak, much less able to shout and wake Jaffa and Wiggins--lying perfectly helpless.

Two Arabs were squatting on their haunches on either side of us. Like a fool I tried to struggle, and the one near me bent down and drew something across my forehead--a knife; I felt its edge jag along the bone and the blood running down the side of my temples and matting on my eyebrows.

I lay still, terrified lest the next time I moved that knife would be across my throat. I really was horror-struck.

I saw the remainder of those brutes stealing aft noiselessly, under the sail into the moonlight, and had an awful fear that in our struggles we had made so little noise that Wiggins and Jaffa would not have waked, and that they, too, would be caught unawares. I did not know whether my revolver had fired or not. I tried to imagine that it had, but everything was too horribly blurred for me to be sure.

Then my heart gave a great bound of relief, for, as the last of those Arabs had stooped down and shown himself in the moonlight, I saw a flash and heard Jaffa's Mauser pistol--and a louder one, Wiggins firing too. Shots banged out close to us, from the foot of the sail. An Arab gave a yell of pain, and the others came stampeding into the shadow again.

Thank Heaven! They had not caught them asleep.

Two of the Arabs--two with revolvers, mine and Dobson's I imagined--knelt down by us and hunted for more ammunition, pressing the muzzles against our foreheads to keep us quiet. The muzzle slipped into that gash; how it did pain! I had no more cartridges--none, thank God! Dobson had an unopened packet of twelve rounds, and we saw them carefully dividing these between each other. A cartridge dropped between us, and they hunted for it among the coils of rope, pulling us away roughly. An Arab pounced on it with a hiss of delight. I saw the Arab with a revolver take it and place it in his chamber, so I knew that they only had twelve rounds between them. Then these two armed men crept along, one on each side, to the edge of the shadow of the sail, stooping down to see under it, whilst the others, with knives in their hands, lay flat down on the deck between them.

I was half-dazed and mad with mortification and rage. I would have given my life to have known what Jaffa and Wiggins were doing at the other end of the dhow. There was a dark shadow under the poop platform, I knew, and trusted with all my heart that they had retreated there. But not a sound came from aft; they might both have been hit for all I knew. And not a sound did the Arabs make either. The only noise was the creaking of the yard against the mast and its huge sleeve of rope. The sail drooped down absolutely motionless, blotting out the moon.

How long this silence lasted I have not the least idea. It seemed ages.

"They have only twelve cartridges," was the only thing I could think of, and waited to count the shots, holding my breath for fear the thudding of my heart would prevent my hearing them.

The dark figures of those Arabs suddenly seemed to stiffen, and then, from either gunwale, where the shadows were darkest, the revolvers flashed and banged, twice on my right, three times on my left.

"Seven cartridges now, only seven," I thought joyfully, and each flash had been answered by more flashes from aft, and bullets ripped along the deck close to where Dobson and I lay.

An Arab gave a low sob, and I heard a revolver clatter to the deck on my left. A dark arm stretched out to pick it up, where it lay in the moonlight, and as the dark hand seized it and hurriedly drew back into the shadow a bullet splintered the deck where it had been.

A long period of silence followed. Except for an occasional groan from one of the Arabs, and the creaking of the yard above us, no sound came to relieve the extreme tension of my ears.

Seven more they had. How many had Jaffa and Wiggins? That was all I could think about. Wiggins would probably have very few, but Jaffa--I knew nothing about him. My ears were throbbing with the strain of listening to count pistol shots which never came. Then they crept aft again. I thought they were going to kill us. They dragged us aft until we lay among them, just in the edge of the shadow of the sail, and one of them began calling out. Though there was no reply from aft, I knew well enough that they were telling Jaffa that he would probably hit us if he fired any more.

So long as these Arabs did not recapture the dhow, I did not care in the least whether I was hit or not.

The answer came with a single pistol shot from aft. As it flashed, both the Arab revolvers went off. Probably they were waiting for this, and fired at the flash. I was too dazed to count the number of shots. Was it two or three? Had they five or four cartridges still? My brain was whirling and numb. I could not be sure.

They were probably as bad shots as ourselves, and appeared to be getting nervous.

There was a hurried consultation among them; they drew back farther into the shadow, and all of a sudden began stripping off their loose cloaks, five of them, two with revolvers, the others with knives, and I could make out the figure and beard of the nakhoda as he gesticulated and encouraged them.

I knew that they were standing by to make a rush aft, when suddenly they gave a hoarse cry and stiffened where they stood, pointing over the sea. They stood like dark statues for a moment, and then the whole darkness disappeared. They stood out in the glare of a searchlight, naked to the waist, their eyes glittering, their lips drawn back in fear, showing their white teeth, and their shadows thrown against the now lighted sail.

In another moment the searchlight--for it was a searchlight--had passed and it was dark again. Jaffa and Wiggins fired half a dozen rounds very rapidly; the bullets did not come for'ard, so probably they were firing in the air; they yelled, too, and back the searchlight swept and remained, whilst a small shell, bursting with a roar close to the bows, threw up a column of fire and water. In a second those Arabs had dropped on their knees, crouching below the gunwales and hiding from the glare of the light--all except the nakhoda, who, yelling something like "Allah", rushed at me with a long knife.

He would have stuck it into me had not the others thrown themselves on him and pulled him to the deck.

As they did so Jaffa and Wiggins, shouting and cursing, rushed forward.

In a minute I was free, Dobson was free. Wiggins had cut the ropes, whilst Jaffa stood guard over the Arabs, and as I staggered to the deck, bleeding like a pig again, a boat rasped alongside, and Popple Opstein's great red face appeared as he climbed over the gunwale, followed by half a dozen men.

"Four more! They've got four more--or is it three?" was all I could think of to say as he came for'ard. I had to sit down to prevent my legs giving way.

"Thank God you came along in time!" I said, as he shook some sense into me and gave me something to drink.

I was all right again in a few minutes, and whilst the Arabs were being securely tied up, to prevent any unpleasant mistakes, I was able to tell him what had happened.

"What about your edge of civilization, Martin, old chap?" he laughed. "You nearly toppled over the edge of it that time, eh? We spotted you in the moonlight, and saw the revolver flashes, so knew something was wrong. We never thought it was you."

"Man, she's full of rifles. I'm dead certain she is," I burst out, "and I haven't been out here ten days! Isn't it splendid?"

"You don't look very splendid," my chum smiled grimly. "The sooner you get on board to our doctor the better."

I really felt almost intoxicated. I could not stop talking. "Look at that one-eyed interpreter of mine," I babbled, turning to Jaffa, who was leaning up against the gunwale cleaning his Mauser pistol. "Look at him! He saved the whole show. He's simply grand with that pistol of his. Aren't you, Jaffa?"

He smiled his inscrutable, dignified smile.

"You saved all our lives. We should not have pulled through without you," I went on, and for the life of me I do not know whether he looked pleased or not.

The _Intrepid's_ men were going round collecting the knives which the Arabs had dropped on deck. Dobson and I found our revolvers.

For the life of me I could not keep silent.

"How many cartridges are there in yours?" I asked him, opening my breech. "There are only two in mine."

"Not a blessed one, sir!" he grinned; so, after all, I had miscounted.

"How many have you?" I asked Wiggins.

"Not a blessed one either, sir! I did have two, but fired 'em when we sighted the _Intrepid_--that 'ere Pershun told me to!"

Commander Duckworth of the _Intrepid_ now came on board the dhow, and I had to tell him the yarn all over again. In spite of feeling absolutely "played out", I talked as if I should never stop, telling him detail after detail, imploring him to go right away and hunt for the _Bunder Abbas_. I rather fancy I suggested that he should leave us in the dhow to sail into Jask.

However, I found myself, Dobson, Wiggins, and Jaffa climbing down into his boat and being pulled across to the _Intrepid_. I know that I talked to them all the time, and to Nicholson, the staff surgeon of the _Intrepid_, whilst he was probing and stitching those wounds of mine. When he had finished these he stuck the needle of a syringe into my arm. "That'll send you to sleep all right," he said, looking at me curiously.

When I went aft he was commencing work on three wounded Arabs who had been brought over. The rest of them were in the battery surrounded by inquisitive bluejackets. The old nakhoda squatted on deck by himself, covered up in his burnous, with only his eyes showing. He did not even deign to look at me. The _Intrepid_ was already steaming ahead, her boats hoisted, and the dhow ("My dhow, old chap," I said, slapping old Popple Opstein on the back) was safely towing astern; I could see her mast.

"Rifles, my dear chap! She's simply chock-full of them!" I laughed.

I was famished--starvingly hungry--and they got food for me down in the ward-room, although Nicholson tried to make me lie down. The ward-room chaps, in their pyjamas, sat round me as I talked to them. I could not leave off talking, and I found that I didn't like anything they had on the table, so could not eat.

Nicholson took hold of my wrist and shoved another beastly syringe needle into my arm. He made the fellows go away too, although I had not told them nearly all that had happened, and in a little while I did let Nicholson take me to a cabin--just to humour him. That is the last I remember--I certainly don't remember undressing--but I woke in broad daylight to find myself in pyjamas belonging to somebody else, feeling rather shaky, my head covered in bandages, and Nicholson standing over me with a satisfied smile on his fat face.

My aunt! how hungry I was!

"Food, Nicholson, that's what I want," I said. "I haven't had anything worth speaking about for twenty-four hours."

He felt my pulse, smiled, and went away. I called him back. "How about the _Bunder Abbas_? Have you found her yet?"

"She's been alongside us for the last forty hours or more," he said. "We are anchored off Sheikh Hill. She's all right."

I looked puzzled. I had not noticed that the engines were not working.

"My dear chap, you've slept solidly for nearly three days. I've seen to that."

Popple Opstein came in, looking anxious, until Nicholson told him that I was as "right as rain". "Man, you are lucky!" he cried, his face growing violet with excitement; "she had nearly four hundred rifles on board. Look! I've brought you one," and he held up a brand-new Mauser rifle.

I handled it lovingly--my first capture. "You won't 'pot' at any poor wretched sentry on the Indian frontier, my beauty," I thought.

"How did you find the _B.A._?" I asked; and my chum explained that the _Intrepid_ had taken my dhow in tow, steaming to the north'ard; that at daybreak the launch had been sighted, and though she had raised steam again she could not use her engines as something had fouled her propeller, below the waterline of course, where Mr. Scarlett could not get at it.

"The result was," old Popple Opstein went on to tell me, "that we had to tow her as well, and when we anchored here sent our divers down to clear it."

Later on Nicholson allowed me to dress, Percy smiling out of his great eyes when he brought me some clean clothes. Afterwards I went aboard the _Bunder Abbas_ to hear Mr. Scarlett's account of what had happened and to see what repairs were still necessary. I found people from the _Intrepid_ busily straightening the bent stanchions and fitting a new after-awning cut from an old awning belonging to the cruiser.

"She'll look all right in a couple of days," Mr. Scarlett said, as he and I watched the last few boxes of ammunition being hoisted up through the dhow's hatches and transferred to the _Intrepid's_ battery deck. It was a most comforting sight.

"Thought I'd seen the last of you, sir, when that big squall struck the dhow, and thought you'd seen the last of the _Bunder Abbas_ when she half-filled herself with water, her fires had been put out, and that hawser coiled itself round the screw.

"My, sir, but I was being sick every few minutes with pure fright--I was that frightened that I wanted to jump overboard and get the drowning over quietly, without a lot of lascars howling and clawing round me--as I was waiting for 'em to do when she did sink. We made some kind of a sea-anchor with what was left of that awning and some spars, got her head to the wind, and baled her out with buckets--with buckets, sir! Three mortal hours that took, and another six to raise steam again, the lascars all preferring to drown up on deck, so not a blessed one would go below.

"We never noticed that hawser round her screw till we let the steam in her engines, wound a few more turns round her screw, and brought them up all standing. Thank God! we hadn't cast off our sea-anchor, or we'd have had all the making of another over again--and dead tired, tired as dogs, we all were."

There was this to say for Mr. Scarlett--I never doubted him. Whenever he told me of anything, I felt perfectly sure that he had told me all. However, I was inquisitive to know how he himself had actually behaved, so could not help asking Corporal Webster later on what kind of a time they had had, hoping that he might have something to say about him.

"Awful weren't the word for it, sir; the worst time I've ever had in my life. We none of us thought she'd float, and she wouldn't have but for the gunner--sick one moment, working like half a dozen men the next. Why, sir, when we steadied her into the wind, an' baled her out, he laid the fires in the boilers himself, no one else knowing how to do it, them lascar chaps funking going below, and we chipping up a mess table (the only dry bit of wood on board) and passing the bits down to him."

I learnt still more of that extraordinary man by watching Percy, the Tamil boy. His eyes showed the most unbounded admiration for the gunner. He simply slaved for him all day long, and seemed to be perfectly happy so long as he was doing something for him: pipeclaying his helmet, or washing out his vests--anything, in fact.

I don't pretend to be a judge of character--luckily--and he certainly puzzled me. That gale had told me more about Mr. Scarlett, Dobson, and Jaffa than I should have learnt in six months of ordinary cruising.

*CHAPTER VI*

*The Edge of Civilization*

For two more days the _Intrepid_ remained at anchor, three miles off Sheikh Hill, within sight of the open shallow creek running up to Bungi village and of those cliffs from which the Afghan, a week before, had wasted ammunition on the _Bunder Abbas_. The launch remained alongside of her and the dhow astern. Why we were thus delayed I am not certain, but from the many curious and inquisitive questions Nicholson continually asked me, and from the many times I caught him watching me, I imagine that it was principally on my account, and that Commander Duckworth would not send me away cruising by myself until Nicholson had reported favourably.

At the end of this time both the _Bunder Abbas_ and I were in first-class condition: the bandage which covered my wounds had been replaced by what Nicholson called a collodion dressing, and the _Bunder Abbas_ showed no signs whatever of her recent hard usage. I was ordered to tow my empty dhow out to sea, set her on fire, and sink her. This I did with very great regret, for, although she was old and rotten, she was my first capture, and I wanted her to be condemned and sold properly by a prize court. However, it was not to be; so she was burnt to the water's edge, and her stone ballast quickly sank her.

We all knew that her cargo of arms and ammunition represented not a tenth of the great number reported to have been brought down to Jeb for shipment to the Makran coast, and everybody felt certain that sooner or later--probably sooner--more dhows would endeavour to run across.

We were therefore very grateful when we did at last receive orders for patrolling between the two inlets.

Two cutters belonging to the _Intrepid_, with a Maxim gun in the bows of each, had to patrol the creeks, keeping out of rifle shot from shore during the day and running close in at night. My chum, Baron Popple Opstein, commanded No. 1; and Evans, a little rat of a lieutenant, full of "go", but all nerves, No. 2.

I was ordered to patrol from one to the other, backwards and forwards, on a line about six miles from the shore, during the daytime, and to close to within a mile of the shore at sunset. I was also ordered to communicate with both cutters each morning, as soon after daylight as possible, to receive reports of any happenings during the preceding night. Still farther out to sea the _Intrepid_ herself would patrol a line twenty miles long, also closing at dusk to within sighting distance of a Very's light, should we want to communicate with her by firing one.

All being ready, Evans, Popple Opstein, and I went aboard the cruiser, fully expecting that Commander Duckworth would give us a great deal of unnecessary advice, as though we were a lot of babies, not to be trusted a hundred yards from him; instead of which he simply asked us if we understood his written orders, and when we answered that we did, merely said: "Right you are! You can get away as soon as you like. Good night!"

"He's a splendid chap to serve under," Evans said in his nervous, hurried way of talking. "He's always just like that."

It was grand to be sent away entirely on one's own, without being tied down this way and that before ever the conditions which might conceivably happen had happened.

"Imagine anything like this in the good old Home Fleet!" my chum said as we parted. "We should be fathered and mothered day and night."

So, an hour before the sun set, I took the two cutters in tow, dropped _Intrepid_ No. 1 close under Sheikh Hill, and steamed down to Kuh-i-Mubarak with No. 2, leaving her there in the mouth of the deep creek running up to Sudab, the village where I had seen the camels.

"Good night and good luck!" I shouted, as I steamed off to sea to commence my own job.

No one expected a dhow to slip across during those first days, because there were so few hours of darkness; but the moon, of course, was rising later each night, and every twenty-four hours increased our chances.

However, nothing came in sight, and on the seventh day--a Thursday it was--according to my orders, I fetched _Intrepid_ No. 2 back to the anchorage off Sheikh Hill, and found the _Intrepid_ herself anchored there, with my chum's boat already alongside.

I made fast to her, and immediately began the job of filling up with coal, water, and provisions; whilst the crews of the two cutters went inboard in order to get a good meal and a comfortable sleep whilst their boats were being revictualled. Sleep in a cutter crammed with gear is not a success. It does not matter how comfortable you try to make yourself, there is always something sticking into your back; and a chum's foot in your face, though quite an unimportant detail, does not induce slumber, especially if the owner happens to be restless.

I went aboard to have my wounds dressed. Nicholson took out the stitches, and said that both gashes were healing well. I wanted him to let me take Wiggins back again. I had had to leave him behind with his broken ribs (very much against his wish), but he was not yet well enough to rejoin.

Then my chum came aboard the _Bunder Abbas_ and smoked his dirty old pipe with me on the little platform deck outside my cabin. We sat in those two easy canvas chairs under the awning and had a good time.

"Enjoyed the week?" I asked.

"Splendid," he said, beaming and showing his white teeth. "Splendid."

"Did that Afghan chap have a shot at you?"

"Once or twice," he nodded. "He's a rattling poor shot."

"Shoot back?"

"Once or twice; never hit him."

He was on board for three hours, and I don't believe he said another word (as a matter of fact he slept most of the time); but as he was going away he wanted to know whether I had seen Mr. Scarlett's snake again.

I had not. He kept a bandage round it now. If he did uncover it, he did so at night.

Popple Opstein was evidently still very interested in it.

"I wish he'd let me try that dodge of a pair of pincers and a bit of tin slipped under it, or wiring its head or something," he said.

I shook my head, and told him that it was useless to suggest that again.

Just before sunset I towed both cutters back to their positions, leaving them there.

Nothing happened during that week, although the darkness was very favourable for any dhow to try to creep in. At sunrise every morning I waited inshore to see that the two cutters were safe and had nothing to report, then pushed farther out to sea to steam slowly up and down, whilst the men not on duty scrubbed decks, cleaned guns, or washed and mended their clothes.

It was fearfully hot all this time, and I learnt that Moore was right after all, and that one could hardly keep awake in the afternoon. From noon until four o'clock the heat, even under the awnings, was at times almost unbearable. I could not keep awake myself, so had to let the men sleep too, and Moore did not hide his satisfaction at my first defeat. The crew was so small, and, what with men on watch and those wanting extra sleep after a night's watch, there were seldom more than three or four "hands" to employ at odd jobs, so precious little cleaning was done either, and I even began to wonder whether it would not be wiser to paint the water jackets of the Maxims, and even the six-pounder, as they were so difficult to keep bright.

"There is either too much wind or not enough" is a sailor's saying about the Persian Gulf; and although we were actually outside the Gulf itself, yet the saying held true enough here. Hardly a puff of wind ruffled the glassy, glaring surface of the sea for those first fourteen or fifteen days: the sun blazed at us all day from an absolutely silent, monotonous, burnished sky. I began to curse it when it rose, and when it did set, and give me a chance to cool down, to dread its reappearance and the heat of the next day.

Mr. Scarlett told me that I should soon become accustomed to it. He himself simply revelled in it. He advised me to drink as little fluid as possible, if I did not want to be covered with prickly heat, and I did my best to follow his advice, although the desire for liquid was sometimes almost unbearable.

Another Thursday we spent alongside the _Intrepid_, my chum coming aboard me to sleep and smoke, and occasionally make some contented remark. Then back we went to our stations for another week of patient watching.

On Sunday morning I edged in as usual, to see whether the Baron had anything to report.

It was about half-past four, still dark, but the darkness rapidly disappearing, when he flashed a signal lantern, and I answered him.

In ten minutes he was alongside. He had a sick man whom he wanted me to take on board, so we hoisted him in and put him down below.

"It's only a touch of the sun," the Baron said; "but we can't make him comfortable here. You can give him back to-morrow."

This occupied perhaps ten minutes. It had become appreciably lighter, and I could see the sheikh's house or fort looming above our heads as I started off to go along to Evans.

We had not steamed a mile before we heard a Maxim firing very rapidly. Looking inshore I could see the cutter pulling in under those cliffs from which that Afghan had fired at us.

"Put your helm over and wake up the engine-room people," I ordered, and round we swung. The cutter had now disappeared round the base of the cliffs, but as we hurried after her we could still hear the Maxim firing.

We all were grandly excited--all except Mr. Scarlett. As he went down to see that our guns were ready I saw that his face was a muddy, grey colour. He would not look me in the face, and his hand was shaking as he steadied himself by the rail. My former feeling of contempt for his cowardice came back.

Percy came up with two cups of cocoa and some biscuits, grinning delightfully; but his face fell when Mr. Scarlett refused any--he thought that he had not made it properly.

It was quite light now, and I steered wide of the cliffs, in order to be able to look up the creek more quickly and to be able sooner to help the Baron if he was "busy".

Then, as the mouth of the creek opened out, there was a shout from for'ard of "Look, sir; look there!" and I was astonished to see a large dhow--a very large dhow--lying half in, half out of the water on the beach, two thousand yards away. A red flag was trailing down from her ensign staff, and her bows were surrounded by a great crowd of camels and natives. The cutter was about nine hundred yards away--between us and the dhow; pulling like mad her men were, and tut-tut-tut-tut went the Maxim in her bows. I could see the line of bullet splashes, first in the water, then in the sand among the camels, then in the water again. They were making bad shooting--a Maxim is always a troublesome weapon in a moving boat.

"Give them a shell!" I yelled down to Mr. Scarlett. The little six-pounder barked, and its first shell burst in the water, but the second sent up a cloud of smoke and sand right among a tangled mass of camels and men. We saw some camels struggling on the ground, and broke into cheers as the rest of them were driven frantically up the beach and the sand-hills, to disappear behind them.

A few chaps, their loose cloaks flapping about, scampered after the others, until not a single living thing was left in sight.

"She's a fine dhow that," Mr. Scarlett said, coming up the ladder to me, his voice very shaky. "We shall have to be very careful, sir."

"Careful!" I shouted. "Why, man alive, they've run away! There's not a soul to stop us. Look at the cutter, man; they're almost up to her."

Mr. Scarlett looked and shivered.

I saw that the cutter had taken the ground. Her bluejackets, with their rifles in their hands, were jumping into the water and wading ashore, racing ashore, my chum struggling to get ahead of them.

"Go it, Popple Opstein!" I yelled, unable to control myself, and wished that the old "_B.A._" would go faster, so that I could be alongside him.

My aunt! What luck! Two dhows in less than a fortnight!

"We shall be millionaires in no time," I said, turning to Mr. Scarlett, to cheer him up; but he had gone down on deck again.

Then I had to stop my engines. I dared not go in any closer; there was not a foot of water under my keel.

I shouted for the dinghy to be lowered.

The Baron and his men--eight of them--were on the firm sand now, running along towards the dhow, cheering and whooping, when suddenly I heard rifle-firing--rifles from behind the tops of those sand-dunes, rifles from the tops of those beastly cliffs, and saw the sand spurting up all round them as they ran. Through my glasses I could see heads peering over the sand-dunes and rifles firing over them. I yelled to the men to leave the dinghy and open fire again with the six-pounder.

Then two of those running figures fell; one rose and went on, the other lay where he fell.

"Lie down and shoot back, or you'll all be killed," I shouted, like a fool, as if they could hear me eight hundred yards away.

Then I realized that if they could reach the dhow they would obtain some shelter from the fire.

I saw my chum fall, sprawling, and get up again, stoop to pick up his revolver--he never would put the lanyard round his neck--and go on again, slowly, limping. Two men stopped to help him, but I saw him waving them to leave him, and they dashed to the side of the dhow, flung themselves flat down, half in, half out of the water, and commenced shooting. My Maxims were busy now, and keeping down the fire a little; but for a couple of seconds poor old Popple Opstein was alone on the beach, with bullet-spirts jumping up all round him. Those two seconds seemed like ages, till, with a gasp of relief, I saw him gain the shelter of the dhow and throw himself down among the others.

Thank goodness! he could not be very badly wounded.

But the dhow only gave shelter from the men behind the sand-hills; my chum and his people were still entirely exposed to a dropping, long-range fire from the tops of those cliffs, and bullets still splashed and spurted all round the dhow.

The six-pounder shells were bursting well along the tops of the sand-hills, and three men, left behind in the stranded cutter, were also peppering them with their Maxim. These two guns kept the people on the beach fairly quiet, so I cocked up my two Maxims and opened fire on the cliff, the people up there immediately paying attention to us. A bullet splintered the deck close to where I was standing, several whistled through the awnings, others flattened themselves against the funnel. Griffiths and I were standing there by the wheel and compass absolutely exposed. I do not know how I looked, but I do know that I was chiefly frightened lest I should look as frightened as I felt. I wondered what Mr. Scarlett was doing. He was under the awning, so I could not see him. A bullet smashed Percy's coffee-cup and broke it to atoms--bullets were flying all round us. There was nothing for me to do; that was the worst of it. To relieve the strain of being idle, I sent Griffiths to bring up a rifle and some ammunition, and took the wheel myself.

Before he came back I saw the figures close to the dhow rise up and dash into the water, wade round her stern, and disappear from view. Seven figures I counted; that little white heap halfway along the sand only made eight; so another must have been badly hit. But now they were safe for a time, entirely sheltered by the dhow.

The natives, Afghans, Baluchis, whatever they were, thereupon turned more rifles on to us and that stranded cutter--both from the sand-hills and from the cliffs. The range from the sand-hills was well over twelve hundred yards, and most of the firing was very wild; but one of our chaps, Jones, a marine, working one of the Maxims, was shot through the arm about this time. However, our high gunwales kept off most of the bullets.