so much the better; but if we should encounter them,
and they should attempt to interfere with me, I want to be prepared."

We continued to discuss the matter for some time longer; but it is not
necessary to repeat more of what was said, sufficient having been
already recorded to indicate the nature of the trouble that was possibly
waiting for us.

The engines were only stopped long enough at Suez to enable us to land
the pilot and the big searchlight which we had shipped at Port Said to
help us through the canal; and, this done, we steamed on into the Gulf
of Suez and the Red Sea.

Our passage down the Red Sea was quite uneventful until the Hanish
Islands hove in sight over the port bow--uneventful, that is to say,
with one exception only, but it was an exception which seemed to cause
our two Russian passengers much perturbation of spirit. For the chat
which Nakamura and I had had with the skipper, shortly after leaving
Port Said, had been succeeded by another on the following day, the
outcome of which was that Kusumoto, with the full approval of my friend
Nakamura and myself, had resolved to take the very serious step of
broaching cargo, with the result that, when the passengers came up on
deck, on the morning which found us off Shadwan Island, they were amazed
to discover two 1-pounder Hotchkisses mounted, one on the
forecastle-head and the other right aft over the taffrail, while a Maxim
graced either extremity of the navigating bridge. The circumstance,
with the reasons which seemed to make such a step necessary and
desirable, was recorded at length in the _Matsuma Maru_ official log,
signed by the skipper and countersigned, at his request, by Nakamura and
myself, as accessories, so to speak.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when the Hanish Islands hove
up above the horizon, at which moment, as it happened, Nakamura and I
were in the captain's cabin, where indeed we had spent most of the time
of late, when we were not in our bunks. The Hanish Islands are, roughly
speaking, within about one hundred miles of the Strait of Bab el Mandeb;
and as we had not been interfered with thus far, we had practically made
up our minds that if the Russians intended to molest us at all, it would
be here, the back of the islands affording an excellent place of
concealment from which to dash out upon a passing ship.

Nor were we disappointed in our expectations; for when we had brought
the northernmost island squar