here by a nigger--think of it!"

We ordered Brown on board and below, pretty peremptorily. Lady Saffren
Waldon stepped out of the darkness next, holding a rifle and two
bandoliers so full of cartridges that she could hardly raise her arms.
We took the load from her, and helped her overside. Fred took the
rifle and succumbed to the hunter's habit of opening the breach first
thing. It was a German sporting Mauser, with a hair trigger attachment
and magazine, as handy and useful a weapon as the heart of man could
wish. He had scarcely snapped the breach to again when a voice we all
recognized made the hair rise on my neck. Fred jumped and raised the
rifle. Will swore softly--endlessly.

"Gassharrrrammminy! You men took us for damned fools, didn't you? You
thought to get away and leave us! By hell, no! We go or you stay!
Birds of a feather fly together! One of you is American--I am
American! Two of you are English--I am English, and can prove it! My
friends come with me!"

Fred leveled the rifle at him.

"About face! Off back to town with you!" he barked.

"Not on your tin-type!" Coutlass yelled. "I'm no man's popinjay!
Shoot if you dare, and I'll spoil the whole game! Help! He-e-e-lp!
He-e-e-e-lp!"

The other Greek and the Goanese joined in the shout, the dark man
setting up such an ululating screech that the very storm dwindled into
second place in comparison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was
carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached
twenty yards inland; but it rattled our nerves, nevertheless. The
skin grew prickly all up and down my backbone, and the men on the
chain-gang inside the hull began shouting to know what the matter was.

Will remembered then that he was captain for the day, and made virtue
of necessity.

"In with you!" he ordered. "Quick!"

With a grin that was half-triumph, half-cunning, and wholly glad,
Coutlass helped his companions over the bow, and had the civility to
stand there with hand outstretched to help us in after him. We sent
him below with his friends, but he came up again and insisted on
leaning his weight on the poles with which we began shoving off into
deeper water. It was hard work, for with her human cargo and several
hundred gallons of water that had leaked through her gaping seams, the
dhow was down several inches. Her hull had just begun to feel the wind
and to rise and fall freely, when a white figure ran screaming dow