n those three days he did five hundred miles; then the wind dropped
to a breeze though it still blew from the North, and for a week they
did no more than two knots an hour. The merry men began to murmur
then. Luck had distinctly favoured Shard at first for it sent him at
ten knots through the only populous districts well ahead of crowds
except those who chose to run, and the cavalry were away on a local
raid. As for the runners they soon dropped off when Shard pointed his
cannon though he did not dare to fire, up there near the coast; for
much as he jeered at the intelligence of the English and Spanish
Admirals in not suspecting his manoeuvre, the only one as he said that
was possible in the circumstances, yet he knew that cannon had an
obvious sound which would give his secret away to the weakest mind.
Certainly luck had befriended him, and when it did so no longer he
made out of the occasion all that could be made; for instance while
the wind held good he had never missed opportunities to revictual, if
he passed by a village its pigs and poultry were his, and whenever he
passed by water he filled his tanks to the brim, and now that he could
only do two knots he sailed all night with a man and a lantern before
him: thus in that week he did close on four hundred miles while
another man would have anchored at night and have missed five or six
hours out of the twenty-four. Yet his men murmured. Did he think the
wind would last for ever, they said. And Shard only smoked. It was
clear that he was thinking, and thinking hard. "But what is he
thinking about?" said Bill to Bad Jack. And Bad Jack answered: "He may
think as hard as he likes but thinking won't get us out of the Sahara
if this wind were to drop."

And towards the end of that week Shard went to his chart-room and laid
a new course for his ship a little to the East and towards
cultivation. And one day towards evening they sighted a village, and
twilight came and the wind dropped altogether. Then the murmurs of the
merry men grew to oaths and nearly to mutiny. "Where were they now?"
they asked, and were they being treated like poor honest men?

Shard quieted them by asking what they wished to do themselves and
when no one had any better plan than going to the villagers and saying
that they had been blown out of their course by a storm, Shard
unfolded his scheme to them. Long ago he had heard how they drove
carts with oxen in Africa, oxen were very numerous in these