sperate Lark with her
dry and suncracked keel in air on the high bank of the Niger fell
forward like a diver. The gun went off through the tree-tops, a wave
came over the bows and swept the stern, the Desperate Lark wriggled
and righted herself, she was back in her element.

The merry men looked at the wet decks and at their dripping clothes.
"Water," they said almost wonderingly.

The Arabs followed a little way through the forest but when they saw
that they had to face a broadside instead of one stern gun and
perceived that a ship afloat is less vulnerable to cavalry even than
when on shore, they abandoned ideas of revenge, and comforted
themselves with a text out of their sacred book which tells how in
other days and other places our enemies shall suffer even as we
desire.

For a thousand miles with the flow of the Niger and the help of
occasional winds, the Desperate Lark moved seawards. At first he
sweeps East a little and then Southwards, till you come to Akassa and
the open sea.

I will not tell you how they caught fish and ducks, raided a village
here and there and at last came to Akassa, for I have said much
already of Captain Shard. Imagine them drawing nearer and nearer the
sea, bad men all, and yet with a feeling for something where we feel
for our king, our country or our home, a feeling for something that
burned in them not less ardently than our feelings in us, and that
something the sea. Imagine them nearing it till sea birds appeared and
they fancied they felt sea breezes and all sang songs again that they
had not sung for weeks. Imagine them heaving at last on the salt
Atlantic again.

I have said much already of Captain Shard and I fear lest I shall
weary you, O my reader, if I tell you any more of so bad a man. I too
at the top of a tower all alone am weary.

And yet it is right that such a tale should be told. A journey almost
due South from near Algiers to Akassa in a ship that we should call no
more than a yacht. Let it be a stimulus to younger men.

Guarantee To The Reader

Since writing down for your benefit, O my reader, all this long tale
that I heard in the tavern by the sea I have travelled in Algeria and
Tunisia as well as in the Desert. Much that I saw in those countries
seems to throw doubt on the tale that the sailor told me. To begin
with the Desert does not come within hundreds of miles of the coast
and there are more mountains to cross than you woul