d make believe to have been
trying to kindle a fire in an old kerosine-oil tin.... Signals of
distress appeared and Moussa Isa disappeared. The great steamer
approached, slowed down, and came to a standstill beside the boat of the
starving castaways. From her cliff-like side the passengers, crowding
the rails of her many decks, looked down with interest upon a
prehistoric craft in which lay a number of poor emaciated blacks and
Arabs, clad for the most part in scanty cotton rags. These poor
creatures feebly extended skinny hands and feebly raised quavering
voices, as they begged for water and a little rice, only water and a
little rice in the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. Their
tins, lotahs and goat-skins were filled, bags of rice, bread and flour
were lowered to them; a box of sugar and a packet of biscuit were added;
and a gentle little rain of coins fell as though from Heaven.

Kodaks clicked, clergymen beamed, ladies said, "How sweetly
picturesque--poor dears"; the Captain murmured, "Damnedest scoundrels
unhung--but can't leave 'em to starve"; the "poor dears" smiled largely
and ate wolfishly; Moussa Isa bled, and the great steamer resumed her
way.

"Pat" Brighte (she was Cleopatra Diamond Brighte who married Colonel
Dearman of the Gungapur Volunteer Bines) found she had got a splendid
snap-shot when her films were developed at Gungapur. A little later she
got another when the look-out saw, and a boat picked up, a man who was
lying in a little dug-out or _toni_. When able to speak, he told the
_serang_[44] of the lascars that he was the sole survivor of a
bunder-boat which had turned turtle and sunk. He understood nothing but
Hindustani.... Miss Brighte pitied the poor wretch but thought he looked
rather horrid....

[44] Native boatswain.

The hearts of the castaways were filled with contentment as their
stomachs were filled with food, and so busily did they devote themselves
to eating, drinking, and sleeping that they forgot all about Moussa Isa
beneath the palm-mats.

When they chanced upon him he was just alive, and his wound was closed.
The attitude in which he had been dumped down upon the cargo (the
ostensible and upper strata thereof, consisting of hides and salt, with
a hint of ostrich-feathers, coffee, frankincense and myrrh) had favoured
his chance of recovery, for, thanks to a friendly bundle, his head was
pressed forward to his chest and the lips of the gaping wound in his
throa