ast?"

"Yes, we passed it when we came back from the wreck," replied `old
Hankey Pankey,' pointing with his hand away to windward. "You will then
cut off the retreat of the dhows, while we head them off farther up the
coast."

"Very good, sir," said Mr Gresham, accepting this as a final dismissal.
"I will attend to your orders, sir. By George, those Arabs will have
to be precious sharp if they manage to steal back past us to their
haunts!"

So saying, Mr Gresham went down the side, without any further palaver;
and, when he was seated in the sternsheets, the pinnace went off in a
bee-line to the sou'-west in the teeth of the monsoon, which was
beginning to blow now pretty briskly.

The first cutter was then piped away, Larrikins and I being the two
first to jump aboard her when the bowman laid hold of her painter and
drew her up alongside.

Lieutenant Dabchick came with us in command, as soon as she was fully
manned and armed, an ammunition-chest being lowered down with a supply
of `pills and pepper' for the little nine-pounder boat-gun we carried in
our bows; when, we sheered away from the ship's side and lay on our
oars, and the second cutter hauled up alongside to receive her crew and
equipment like ourselves.

This did not take long in doing--the whaler being also manned and the
senior midshipman sent in charge of her, with the boatswain to check his
rashness; and then, the three of us, first cutter, second cutter and
whaler, were all taken in tow by the _Mermaid_, which went off full
speed ahead after the Arab dhows that were now only some five miles off
us, the cruiser shaping a slanting course so as to prevent them from
making for the wide stretch of open water that lay to the north'ard,
should they try to escape in that way.

Their retreat to the port whence they had sailed was cut off by the
pinnace; and, as their only refuge now when we overhauled them would be
the rock-bound coast lying between Binna and Ras Hafim, they were, as I
heard Mr Dabchick say to the coxswain, `between the devil and the deep
sea!'

The reckless beggars, too, were so busy looking out in the direction of
the stranded steamer for which they were making, that somehow or other
they did not catch sight of us until they were nearly within easy range
of our six-inch breechloaders; the leading dhow, which was what the
Arabs call a `batilla,' and carried two large lugs or lateen sails on
wide yards, besides a sort of square jib for