it out of hand, and he hesitated. Georges
Coutlass saved the day by letting go the shivering Syrian maid and
slashing at the halyard with his knife. Down came the great spar with
a crash, and as the dhow swung round in answer to anchor and helm,
Fred, Will and Brown, between them, contrived to save the sail, Brown
complaining that we were the first sailors he ever heard of who did not
have rum served them for working overtime in dirty weather.

So we lay, then, wallowing in the jaws of a crescent granite reef, and
watched the red glow above the German launch move farther and farther
away from us. We waited there, wet and hungry, until dawn dimmed the
flame from the burning roofs of Muanza, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon
loudly accusing us all at intervals of being rank incompetents unfit to
be trusted with the lives of fish, and Coutlass afraid of nothing but
interruption. The things he said to the maid, in English--the only
language that they had apparently in common--would have scandalized a
Goanese harbor "guide" or a Rock Scorpion from the lower streets of
Gib. He did not mention marriage to her, beyond admitting that he had
half a dozen wives already, and had been too bored by convention ever
to submit to the yoke again. The maid seemed enraptured--delirious in
the bight of his lawless arm, forgetful of her wetting, and only afraid
when he left her for a minute.

We dared not try to cook anything, even supposing that had been
possible. Forward was a box full of sand to serve as hearthstone, but
the little scraps of fuel we had brought with us were drenched and
unburnable, even if the risk of being seen were not too great. Lady
Saffren Waldon told us we were "toe-rag contrivers." In fact, now that
she was out of reach of the men she feared and hated most, she reverted
to type and tried to domineer over us all by the simple old
recipe--audacious arrogance. Luckily, she slept for an hour or two.

A little before dawn, when it began to be light enough to let us see
the outline of the shore, we sent Kazimoto aloft to reeve our hemp rope
through the hole that did duty for block, and by the time the sun had
pushed the uppermost arc of his rim above the sky-line we once more had
the sail set.

The wind was still blowing a gale; the seamanlike precaution would
have been to lie where we were at anchor until fairer weather; but
daring is forced on the fearfullest, and there was nothing for it but
to study out the me