parts
wherever there was any cultivation, and for this reason when the wind
had begun to drop he had laid his course for the village: that night
the moment it was dark they were to drive off fifty yoke of oxen; by
midnight they must all be yoked to the bows and then away they would
go at a good round gallop.

So fine a plan as this astonished the men and they all apologised for
their want of faith in Shard, shaking hands with him every one and
spitting on their hands before they did so in token of good will.

The raid that night succeeded admirably, but ingenious as Shard was on
land, and a past-master at sea, yet it must be admitted that lack of
experience in this class of seamanship led him to make a mistake, a
slight one it is true, and one that a little practice would have
prevented altogether: the oxen could not gallop. Shard swore at them,
threatened them with his pistol, said they should have no food, and
all to no avail: that night and as long as they pulled the bad ship
Desperate Lark they did one knot an hour and no more. Shard's failures
like everything that came his way were used as stones in the edifice
of his future success, he went at once to his chart-room and worked
out all his calculations anew.

The matter of the oxen's pace made pursuit impossible to avoid. Shard
therefore countermanded his order to his lieutenant to cover the
tracks in the sand, and the Desperate Lark plodded on into the Sahara
on her new course trusting to her guns.

The village was not a large one and the little crowd that was sighted
astern next morning disappeared after the first shot from the cannon
in the stern. At first Shard made the oxen wear rough iron bits,
another of his mistakes, and strong bits too. "For if they run away,"
he had said, "we might as well be driving before a gale and there's no
saying where we'd find ourselves," but after a day or two he found
that the bits were no good and, like the practical man he was,
immediately corrected his mistake.

And now the crew sang merry songs all day bringing out mandolins and
clarionets and cheering Captain Shard. All were jolly except the
captain himself whose face was moody and perplexed; he alone expected
to hear more of those villagers; and the oxen were drinking up the
water every day, he alone feared that there was no more to be had, and
a very unpleasant fear that is when your ship is becalmed in a desert.
For over a week they went on like this doing ten knot