at sunset; after
which, hoisting in all our boats, the cruiser put on steam and made for
Ras Hafim, picking up, when nearly abreast of the headland, just before
dark, the steam pinnace--all the chaps aboard of which, from Mr Gresham
downwards, getting quite angry when we told them of the little piece of
business we had been engaged on up the coast, our shipmates being riled
at having been left out in the cold and not sharing in our fun.

Fun they thought it; but, if they had gone through the job of scrubbing
down the thwarts and bottom boards of the cutter after the fray, as
Larrikins and I had to do, mopping up the blood and gore, which was more
than an inch deep, the fighting would not have seemed so jolly as their
imaginations pictured it.

Seeing nothing of our senior officer after picking up the pinnace, we
proceeded down the coast in the direction of Zanzibar, running across
him at last when near Mombassa.

This was lucky for us; for, as soon as Captain Hankey had communicated
with the flagship, he received fresh instructions that he was to keep
guard on the district lying between Pemba on the south and Witu on the
north; and, as Mombassa was about midway between the two points, we
were, so to speak, in the very centre of our cruising ground.

For the next few months, though, our work was not very lively, all of us
belonging to the boats being now engaged on patrol duty and separated
for weeks sometimes from our comrades on board the ship.

The first and second cutters, the launch, and the steam pinnace were
each provisioned and sent away to scout along the coast independently of
each other, watching for dhows and any suspicious craft we might see
making from the mainland for the islands, having orders to capture or
destroy such as we found carrying slaves; the _Mermaid_, our foster-
mother, giving us a look-up in turn at our respective stations, to see
how we were getting on, and supply us with any stores we might need in
the grub and water line.

It was a dreary task.

Sometimes for days we would not sight a sail; and, keeping out to sea,
so as to avoid observation from the shore, there was nothing to be seen
that could distract one's attention but the wide-stretching steel-blue
surface of the limitless Indian Ocean, and the eternal coppery sky
overhead, with never a cloud to shade us from the ever-blazing sun.

The south-west monsoon was in full swing, and the weather, consequently,
was cooler than us