"Look at that! Isn't that grand?"
"_Bunder Abbas_," he said, as we lay back in the luxurious chairs--they
really did feel comfortable now that I was going out to the waste parts
of the world. "That was Collingwood's launch. What's become of him?"
"Died of sunstroke," I told him.
"Really, now?" the doctor went on; "he's only been there three months.
I knew him slightly; he relieved a chap who had beri-beri, or one of
those funny tropical diseases--sometimes you swell, sometimes you do the
other thing. I forget now which he did before he was invalided home. I
did hear; it was quite interesting. So you're off there? Well, good
luck! Are the 'footer' results in that paper?
"D'you want any tips for the Persian Gulf?" he asked presently, when he
had finished reading the football news. "Whatever you like to eat,
don't eat it. (You can't get it, so you needn't bother to remember that
tip.) And if you want gin or whisky, or any comforts like that, chuck
them over the side: they may kill the sharks; they won't kill you. In
fact, my dear chap, whatever you like doing and want to do, there's only
one tip to remember if you want to keep fit--don't do it!
"If you get beri-beri," he called after me as I fled, "you might let me
know whether you swell or do the other thing."
I packed my bag, not in the least disturbed by anyone's gloomy remarks,
and went back to my ship at Portland.
My orders came next day.
I was to take passage in a P. & O. mail steamer, sailing in twelve days'
time (a luxury I never expected), and join the _Intrepid_ at Aden, where
further orders would be given me.
A fortnight later I was tumbling and churning through the "Bay" in the
P. & O. _Java_, as happy as a king, without a care in the world.
A lieutenant named Anderson shared my cabin. He was going out to join
the _Intrepid_ as one of her watchkeepers. As, but for him, I should
probably never have survived to write the account of what happened to us
later on, I will give an idea of what kind of chap he was. First of
all, he was known to his chums as "The Baron" or as "Baron Popple
Opstein", though why these nicknames ever stuck to him I don't know.
He was a great lumbering, clumsy giant, with a long red face, a big
hooked nose, and a large mouth, always smiling, and showing the whitest
set of teeth I have ever seen. He had laughing blue eyes, which saw
everything except people's faults, and a mop of yellow, silk-coloured
hair which grew down his great red forehead in a quaint triangular patch
pointing to his nose. His whole face beamed good humour and kindliness;
he was the simplest, happiest soul alive--one of those men with whom it
is good to live. He never did much talking, and never wanted anyone to
talk much to him; but would sit smoking his old, disgracefully charred
pipe, and beam by the hour, just happy to have the dancing sea under his
feet and the fresh salt air in his lungs. He really was a
splendid-looking fellow, but by some odd twist in his mind imagined he
was ugly. This made him rather retiring and bashful. He would sooner
try to stop a mad dog than be introduced to a lady. "My dear old chap,"
he would say, if I wanted to introduce him to one of the lady
passengers, "what on earth can I talk to her about? She doesn't want to
hear about scrubbing hammocks, or the gunnery manual. I can't think of
anything else to talk about."
The result was that we both kept pretty much to ourselves, and amused
ourselves watching the others.
There was a major on board going out to India--a fussy, conceited
individual who imagined that all the ladies must be head over heels in
love with him. He tried to patronize us, but we gave him the cold
shoulder, and so did a little pale-faced, rather nice-looking girl about
twenty-two, with hair the very same shade as the Baron's. She was not
English--I could tell that by the way she talked--and she kept almost
entirely to herself. I never spoke to her during the voyage, but once I
overheard her snub the major in broken English, in the most deliberate,
delightful manner, and as he went away, with a silly expression on his
face, our eyes met. There was such an irresistibly humorous twinkle in
hers that I smiled too--I really could not help it. At that her smile
died away, as if ashamed of itself, her pale face flushed, and I
followed the major, feeling like a naughty boy who had been caught
prying.
At Port Said we picked up Mr. Thomas Scarlett--Gunner, R.N.--serving in
the _Jason_, which was doing guardship there.
I had seen his appointment to the _Bunder Abbas_ in the newspapers, and,
as we should have to live together for the next two years, I was anxious
to know what manner of man he was.
He certainly looked a queer chap, tall and thin, with stooping
shoulders, bushy black eyebrows meeting across his forehead, two
piercing black eyes deeply sunk beneath them, a beaked nose over very
thin tight lips, and the blackest of hair, moustache, and pointed beard.
He looked very much like a vulture, with his long thin neck stretching
out from a low collar, much too large for him. When he talked, the
words tumbled out, one after the other, so quickly that, until one
became used to him, it was difficult to understand what he said.
We soon found out that he had been in the Persian Gulf many times in the
course of the last few years, so Baron Popple Opstein and I used to take
him along to our special corner on deck, and ask him questions. He gave
us the impression that he did not wish to go out there again, and
whenever he talked of the Persian Gulf and of his former experiences
there he seemed nervous and very ill at ease. But, once we made him
talk, his stories of pirates, pearl-fishers, slavers, and gun-runners
were as absorbing as one could wish. Old Popple Opstein's face would
grow purple with excitement. Mr. Scarlett, too, would often work
himself into a great pitch of vehemence as he told some especially
thrilling yarn.
"You might be an Arab yourself," I said one night, when he had brought a
story to a climax, leaving us breathless and fascinated with his
glowing, fiery description.
"I am almost, sir," he said. "My father was the constable of the
Residency at Bushire, and my mother was half-Arab."
That explained his dark complexion, and why, in the middle of a yarn, he
would often slide off his chair and sit Moorish fashion--cross-legged.
He could always talk more easily in that attitude.
Ever since he had joined the Navy he had served, off and on, in the
East, his knowledge of all the languages and different dialects of those
parts, picked up when he was a boy, being so useful.
One night, four days out from Suez, we were making him tell us all he
knew about gun-running. It was very warm, damp, and unpleasant, so he
took off his coat. In doing so he happened to pull the shirtsleeve of
his left arm above his elbow. By the light of a lantern overhead we saw
something glittering round his arm. My chum peered forward to look at
it, but the gunner hastily pulled his sleeve down.
"What the dickens is that?" we both asked.
First glancing fore and aft, to see that no one was near, he very
reluctantly pulled up his sleeve.
He held his arm so that the lantern light fell upon it, and we saw that
the thing round his arm was a small snake, marvellously enamelled--a
cobra it was. The joints, even each separate scale, seemed flexible, and
as he worked his muscles underneath it the snake seemed to cling more
tightly to his skin, in the most horribly realistic fashion. Two
greenish-tinged opal eyes blinked at us as the light overhead flickered
in them.
The Baron leant forward to touch it, but Mr. Scarlett, with a sudden
look of horror, shot out his right hand and clutched the Baron's hand so
violently that he cried out.
"Don't touch it, sir! For God's sake, don't touch it. There's poison
enough in that thing to kill a dozen men!" he gasped fiercely.
"What is it--what do you mean? Tell us!" we cried.
Some passengers coming along the deck, he instantly covered it with his
sleeve.
"I generally wear a bandage over it," he said nervously. "The night was
so hot that I took it off."
"Well, tell us about it," we urged him. "Where did you get it?"
"Jassim gave it to me," Mr. Scarlett answered, his black eyes burning
strangely as he looked round to see that no one could overhear him.
"I'll tell you when and how that snake came here. It's a long
story--and a sad one. When you have heard it you will know why I do not
want to go back to the Persian Gulf. But, for God's sake, sirs, don't
ever mention it to a soul!"
We promised--we would have promised anything to learn its story.
*CHAPTER II*
*The Story of the "Twin Death"*
"It was nearly thirty years ago when I first saw that bracelet," Mr.
Scarlett began in a strained voice. "I was only a boy then. It was
brought to my father's house, at Bushire, by a Banyan jeweller--a friend
of his--who showed it to him as one of the most marvellous and curious
pieces of workmanship in the East. I remember how frightened I was to
hear the stories he told of it, and to see them examining it.
"When the jeweller had gone, my father, who knew its history, told me
that, when it was pulled off the arm which wore it, it would writhe and
strike with the poisoned fangs in its head, and kill both the wearer and
the person who tore it off.
"There is an Arab song, nearly two hundred years old, which sings of it.
The song is about the woman who first wore it. She was the favourite
wife of a murdered Sultan of Khamia, and fell alive into the hands of
his Persian conqueror. He wanted to marry her because she was so
beautiful, and she dared him, if he would win her, to tear the bracelet
off her arm--dared him in front of his Court--and he was so mad with
love that he did so, although he knew what would happen. The snake
struck them both, and they died. In that Arab song she is supposed to
sing several verses after the fangs struck her, but," Mr. Scarlett's
voice trembled hoarsely, "I know that she had not time."
"You don't mean to tell us that this is the same one?" the Baron asked
breathlessly.
"It is, sir. I wish it wasn't."
"But how did you get it?" he asked again.
"Let the gunner spin his yarn," I told him impatiently.
"Well," he went on, "it has always been worn by the chief wife of the
Sultan of Khamia. It is her privilege to be the only wife who follows
her husband at his death. She had to kill herself by tearing it off her
own arm, and if her courage failed her a slave stood by to do it, and
the two would die. The slave was not likely to fail her, for to die by
'the twin death' was supposed to be a sure way of attaining Paradise,
and not many slaves ever thought that they would have the chance to get
there.
"Some of this my father told me, and the rest, and many other things
besides, I learnt afterwards from the Arabs up and down the coast.
"I saw it next eight or nine years afterwards. I was an ordinary seaman
in a gunboat lying off Muscat, and, happening to be ashore one
afternoon, with nothing to do, I noticed that there was quite a crowd of
natives gathered on the shore.
"They told me that the Sultan of Khamia was just going to embark on his
way to Mecca, so I stopped to see him, knowing that he was the worst
brigand and pirate in the whole of the Gulf, and wishing to see what
kind of chap he was.
"Presently he came down with a crowd of attendants to guard him--a
fine-looking fellow he was--and after him followed some hooded cages or
palanquins. Inside these, hidden from view, were, I knew, his favourite
wives, accompanying him as far as Jeddah. Out of the first stretched a
beautiful arm, and on it was that snake bracelet.
"I half expected to see it, and recognized it at once. You should have
seen that crowd of natives give way and fall back. Everyone knew what
it was, and what it meant. They edged away as if it was the devil
himself.
"The closed cages were taken on board a lighter; the lighter was towed
out to a little steamer rolling in the mouth of the harbour between the
two old Portuguese forts, and I soon forgot all about the bracelet.
"Five years afterwards fate brought me to the Gulf again. I was a petty
officer in the gunboat _Pigeon_ then, and everywhere we went we heard
the name of Jassim, the now Khan of Khamia--the absolute despot of the
south-western part of the Persian Gulf, the head of the Jowassim tribes
of slavers and pirates, and the terror of the seas. Not a dhow dared
leave any port without first paying tribute to him, and the tales of his
atrocities made our blood boil with rage; because he was not satisfied
with being master of the Gulf, but he'd swoop down on coast towns,
demand tribute from them, and, if there was any resistance--even
hesitation in paying--he would kill every man, woman, and child in ways
so callously brutal that you could not imagine a human being capable of
inventing them.
"His latest exploit had been to capture the whole fleet of pearl-fishing
dhows and trading baggalows[#] inside Muscat harbour. He filled them
with his rascally followers--Bedouins chiefly--and thought himself
strong enough to tackle the English.
[#] Baggalow=large ocean-going dhow.
"We soon heard that he was preparing to seize the pearl-fishing dhows
which were then fitting out at Bahrein--under the English flag and the
English guns of the fort there--to sail for the pearl banks, down south.
"The _Pigeon_ and the old _Sphinx_ were therefore ordered to search for
Mr. Jassim and teach him a lesson.
"Well, after dodging in and out of the bays in that rocky coast, shoving
our nose in, finding nothing, and shunting out again, we found him, one
morning, anchored at the head of a shallow bay with all his fleet.
"Four hundred and twenty-two dhows we counted, their sloping masts and
yards showing up like a forest against the shore. Every one of them was
flaunting the red flag with a white border, the flag of the Jowassims.
The whole place was a-flutter with them.
"At the top of the bay Jassim had built himself a fort, and lived there,
we found out afterwards, in great style, with his harem, sheikhs' sons
to wait on him, gold plates to eat off, and everything simply tiptop.
"Four hundred odd dhows were there, manned for the most part by
dare-devil Bedouins, with a fair sprinkling of Beni Ghazril, Ballash,
and Ahmed tribes--all low-caste tribes not too keen on fighting. Armed
they were with old smooth bores--nine-pounders, there or
thereabouts--and the little _Pigeon_ was equal to taking on the lot if
she could only have fetched in close enough; which she couldn't, as she
drew too much water. We had to anchor five miles away from these
dhows--five miles if a yard.
"Out came a sheikh or a khan--some big swell--to say that Jassim was
only waiting for a change of wind to come out and eat us up. As it was
blowing a steady shamel (you two gentlemen will know what that is before
you've been out here long), blowing right into the bay, and not likely
to ease down for two or three days, we didn't trouble about them trying
to escape. Well, the skipper sent that sheikh chap back with a flea in
his ear, and presently Jassim himself came along in a grand barge,
flying the Turkish flag--like his cheek!--and as cool as anything comes
up the side and gives our skipper two hours to clear out of it.
"The cheek of the man amused the skipper, who merely took him aft into
his cabin, kept him there for two hours, talking and drinking coffee,
showed him his watch and that the two hours had gone by, told him he
would have hanged him had he not been flying the Turkish flag, and sent
him back to his fleet.
"The tide rising presently, we chanced our luck and moved in a bit
closer. Directly we moved, those dhows, hundreds of them, let rip at us
with their old pop-guns, the shot plunking into the water half-way, and
not even the 'ricos' reaching us.
"That was just what the skipper was waiting for. He opened fire with our
four-inch guns, keeping it up from four o'clock that afternoon till six,
and setting a good many of the dhows on fire. Just before the sun went
down, along came the old _Sphinx_, paddling furiously, and chipped in
with her old-fashioned guns, till neither of us could see a thing to aim
at, except flames occasionally. The whole bay was a mass of smoke from
the dhows we had set on fire with our shells.
"It was a fine sight as the sun set behind the great mountains inshore,
and the dark shadows of them came racing across the plain and the
harbour, showing up the flames still more brightly.
"If you ever cruise along that coast don't miss that sight--the sight of
those shadows as the sun sinks behind the mountains," Mr. Scarlett
interrupted his yarn to tell us.
"Well, all that night we and the _Sphinx_ fired occasionally to keep the
Arabs' nerves on edge, and made all ready to send in every boat we
possessed, at daybreak, to see what we could do.
"That was the longest day's work I ever did, and the worst--the worst,"
Mr. Scarlett hissed out, apparently waking up and altering his voice, as
if he had been somebody else telling the yarn before, or as if he had
suddenly turned over a fresh page in a book he was reading, remembered
the terrible ending, and wanted to shut it up.
The Baron and I almost jumped out of our chairs.
"Yes, the worst. My God! it was the worst." He jumped to his feet,
looked ashamed of himself, sat down, and went on to tell us in a
strained voice, as though the ending was too terrible, how the crews of
the _Pigeon_ and _Sphinx_ had pulled ashore in their boats, like midges
round a horde of elephants. He said that two of the bigger dhows,
placed end on end, would be nearly as big as the _Victory_.
We did not believe him.
He told us how, as one boat would clap alongside a huge towering dhow,
her demoralized crew would clamber down the other side to their boats or
jump overboard. The bluejackets had brought tins of paraffin, with
which they set on fire each dhow they boarded, adding still further to
the terror and disorder, until the crews of all those four hundred odd
junks abandoned them and clustered at the edge of the shore, behind the
walls of Jassim's fort, shouting bravely and shooting off their crazy
rifles in defiance.
So the bluejackets left off their work of destruction, the boats pulled
ashore together, the men wading as soon as their keels grated on the
beach, whilst the Nordenfeldts and Gardner guns in their bows fired
point-blank into the demoralized crowd of Arab scum. There must have
been fifteen thousand of them on the beach; but panic broke out among
them, and they melted away from the shore and from the fort, scurrying
away inland in front of that handful of bluejackets until they had taken
refuge in the defiles and crevasses of those barren mountains, where (as
Mr. Scarlett told us) you could hardly believe it possible for a goat to
live, but where they sought shelter like frightened sheep.
When he had come to this point Mr. Scarlett paused a little, as if he
was reluctant to go on. Then he started again hurriedly:
"And we came back, very slowly back, panting, our feet red-hot and our
tongues swollen with thirst, the blazing sun on our backs. And we found
Jassim squatting on his prayer mat on the sloping shore, his back turned
to the sea and his burning ships, his face turned to the sun.
"A woman crouched at his feet.
"These two were alone, the only living things there; no other human
being had stayed with him; she alone of all his harem and his people
remained to share his fate. I was sent for to act as interpreter; and
our skipper--a tender-hearted man--had pity on Jassim now that his power
was absolutely broken, and gave him the choice of coming on board or
staying where he was. Jassim chose to stay, answering proudly and
defiantly, as though he was still lord of a powerful fleet, or as though
his spirit was not broken. Then it was that I saw this hateful snake
for the third time--it was on that woman's arm."
Mr. Scarlett's voice began to tremble, and as he coiled cross-legged on
the deck, and put his hands to his forehead, we could see his dark,
burning eyes gazing outboard, across the deck and the deck rails, to
where the sea and the blackness of the night sky met each other, a dark
rim beyond the moonlit sea surrounding the ship. His face was haggard
and drawn, as if he saw what he was about to tell us.
"Yes, he was there! Jassim was there, his head bowed beneath a coarse
burnous[#]; and whilst the rest of us went away to loot the fort and
destroy the guns, a seaman and myself were left as guard on those two.
[#] Burnous = loose Arab cloak.
"I spoke to him in his own tongue, told him to cheer up, that his luck
was 'out' now, but that it was fate, and a better time would come. He
seemed not to hear; he just sat gazing at the sun as it sank lower and
lower towards the rim of the mountains, where all his men had
disappeared; and his wife crouched moaning before him, putting a hand
out now and again to touch him, just to remind him that she was there
and suffering too. Presently she bared her left arm, and moaned to him
not to allow himself to fall into the hands of the infidel, but to seek
Paradise and take her with him, holding out her arm with the snake
coiled round it, imploring him to pull it off and set them both free.
"Jassim never answered her, never looked down at her, never moved a
muscle of his face, and never looked at that bracelet.
"But the sight of it was too much for the seaman left on guard. Poor
fool! he thought it would be a fine curio, and before I could stop him
he strode forward, bent down, and seized it.
"The woman gave one shriek of agony as he pulled it from her arm, and
with an oath I saw him throw it down in the white sand, where it coiled
and writhed, whilst he looked at the back of his hand and wiped away two
tiny spots of blood.
"'Suck them, for God's sake, suck them! The thing's poisoned!' I
yelled, and, springing to the woman, bent down and sucked two little
marks on her arm just below the shoulder.
"Jassim never moved an eyelash.
"The woman jerked herself from me as if the touch of an infidel defiled
her, and as if she courted death. She had scarcely dragged herself again
to her knees before she began to writhe with pain, and her arm became a
dusky swollen purple, spreading upwards over her shoulder as I watched.
"The seaman, cursing, was staggering down to the sea, but swayed and
fell half-way, rolling convulsively, clawing at the sand and jerking
himself towards the edge of the water.
"I could do nothing for either, and I could not take my eyes from that
woman. She was appealing to Jassim to make the snake kill him, so that
they should not be separated, and she implored him to hold her, so that
she could die in his arms. Never a muscle did he move; and she cried
piteously for him to look at her, just one look. But Jassim would not
look at her. Her face was dusky now, her swollen tongue came out of her
mouth, and in her agony her pride was broken, and she asked me for
water. It was the last word she spoke, poor soul! I had some in my
water bottle, so knelt down and held it to her lips. But she could not
drink, so I poured a little into her mouth and over her face. Her dark
eyes, dark as velvet they were, gave me one dumb look of gratitude; then
the life went out of them and she was dead.
"As I knelt, Jassim must have stooped down and picked up the gold snake,
for he suddenly flicked it round my arm, saying in a deep guttural
voice: 'Blessed is the giver of water--above all men. Allah, the great,
the compassionate, gave water to those that burned in Hell, even as thou
gavest! Thy reward shall be great; only become a true believer, for this
is the key of Paradise.'
"I jumped to my feet, half-dazed, and dared not touch the thing as it
clung to me, snuggling tightly round my arm.
"The woman was dead. I ran to the sea; the bluejacket's body was moving
gently as the tiny waves rolled in. I knew that he was dead, and I
turned to implore Jassim to take it off if he knew how to do so without
killing me.
"As I turned, the lower edge of the sun touched the top of those awful
mountains, and Jassim, crouching on his prayer carpet, a little patch of
red on the sloping white beach, with the dead woman in front of him,
suddenly raised himself to his knees, held wide his hands, and called:
'Allah ho Akhbar', as though summoning the faithful to prayer and his
contemptible followers back to him.
"Then he prostrated himself, and, raising himself again, commenced:
'Bismillahi! Rahmanni! Raheem!' whilst I stood awed as he recited the
prayer, till the upper rim of the sun disappeared, and those dark
shadows came again down the sides of the mountains and along the waste
of sands, rushing like evil spirits towards us....
"The first lieutenant was at my side shaking me. He had his hand on the
snake, as if to take it.
"'What the devil do you mean by looting?' he said; but I gave a shriek,
and sprang away, striking up his hand.
"As I retreated backwards, step by step, I told him what had happened.
He did not believe me; he thought me mad--that I had a 'touch of the
sun'. But he let me be, presently, and I covered that thing up with the
sleeve of my flannel as best I could--and found myself back again on
board the _Pigeon_. Perhaps I was mad, for I could never remember how I
did get aboard, and I was on the sick list for many days, lying in a
cot, covering the snake with my free hand, and moaning for people to let
it be--so they told me afterwards."
The gunner stopped talking, breathed heavily, and wiped his forehead.
He began speaking in his ordinary composed way:
"Since then, thirteen years ago--aye, thirteen years it is next June--an
unlucky year--that thing has coiled round my arm and never left it."
My chum's eye had been gradually starting more and more out of his head.
Now he gasped out:
"Never! Do you really mean it?"
"No, never," Mr. Scarlett groaned.
"But, man, a pair of long pincers seizing the head and neck and sliding
a sleeve of thin tin or something like that underneath--next your
skin--why, there are heaps of ways you could get it off--safe ways--if
you really wanted to do so."
"Don't you think I've been tempted, sir; dozens of different ways have
been suggested. All seemed safe, but there was just the chance that the
thing would strike somewhere--and--and--I'd seen those two die, and put
off trying for another day, till now I'm almost used to it.
"Look," the gunner said, pulling up his shirt sleeve and holding out his
arm so that the moonlight showed the snake. "Watch its head!" and he
very softly began to push one finger underneath a coil. As he did so,
the head began to raise itself from his skin, and a tiny dark line, not
visible before, showed across the end where the mouth was.
"Stop!" we both cried, perspiration pouring from me and running down my
back, the Baron's mouth wide open with fear. "Take your finger away."
And he uttered a hoarse, gasping laugh as he knew that at last we were
convinced. He drew back his finger, and the head lay back again.
"Now you can guess why I don't want to come back to the Gulf. This
bracelet is known to every Arab there. The Sultan of Khamia is certain
to find out, sooner or later, that I have it, and then there will be an
end to me. Why, sirs, he would give half his wealth to get it back, and
once it becomes known that I have it he will get it somehow or other.
Getting it, I must die."
"Man alive," the Baron cried, "why don't you try? A thin sheet of tin or
something pushed under it, then seize the head with pincers! Why, man,
it simply couldn't bite you! There'd be no risk whatsoever."
"But I can't," Mr. Scarlett almost moaned. "I can't face it. If
anything did happen--I've seen those two die--remember that. It seems
part of me now--thirteen years it has been there--and I've been brought
up amongst Arabs--my mother was half an Arab, and there's something in
my blood which won't let me try. It's fate--Kismet--and I dare not fly
in face of that."
The Baron fell back in his chair hopelessly.
"Then why didn't you back out of coming here? Why didn't you explain?" I
asked.
Then his manner changed again. He had come out of his dreams, and began
talking hurriedly as if his lips were shaking.
"Truth is, gentlemen, I'm a born coward. I was too frightened to let on
that I was frightened of coming out this way again. It's the same thing
with many things I do. I'm too frightened to let on as how I'm
frightened, and up to now things have gone all right. I'm a coward,
sir, and I don't mind telling you," he said, turning to me. "We have to
live together for the next two years--if I'm spared--and you'll find
that out before you've known me many weeks, so you may as well know now.
Feel my hand, sir!"
I felt it. It was cold and clammy and trembling. His dark face looked a
ghastly mud colour.
"That's simply because I've been talking about it, and it reminds me of
things which have been--and might be again."
"Come down below and have a brandy-and-soda," I said, and we took him
down below, rather glad to get into the noisy glare of the smoking
saloon, even though it was so hot.
We always slept on deck, the Baron and I, but that night, whether it was
the heat or the effects of the gunner's story, precious little sleep did
we get; so, after tossing about restlessly for an hour, we gave up
trying, and leant over the deck rails and talked.
"I'm sure it would be as easy as winking," my chum said. "One could
lash wire or even string round its head, so that the mouth could not
open. The fangs couldn't come out then.
"I wonder what became of that man Jassim," he broke in presently. "He's
probably dead, so no one could possibly know that the gunner has it. If
he keeps it covered up he will be as safe as anything."
He gazed out over the sea, thinking.
"And probably what poison is left in it wouldn't kill a canary now," he
burst out again--neither of us could take our minds off the snake.
"Thirteen years ago! It must have lost its power by now."
We went to our beds after a time and tried to sleep. Baron Popple
Opstein was soon snoring, but presently jumped up, shrieking, and I saw
him trying to pull something off his arm.
I shook him until he woke up, very much ashamed of himself. He was
perspiring like a drowned rat, and it made me feel queer and shaky. I
did not like the mystery of the beastly thing. I had to live with the
gunner and it. If he was going to fill me up with many more such
stories, I should soon be frightened of my own shadow.
*CHAPTER III*
*Skipper of the "Bunder Abbas"*
Two days later we arrived at Aden, and found the _Intrepid_ anchored
close to Steamer Point, looking cool and comfortable under her white
awnings and white paint. The officer of the "guard", coming across for
her mails, took the Baron and myself back with him.
As skipper of the _Bunder Abbas_ I felt a somewhat important personage,
but Commander Duckworth, the captain of the _Intrepid_, a short,
red-faced, wiry man, full of energy, soon disabused me about that.
It was terrifically hot in his cabin, and he was not in any mood for
talking.
"Eh, yes, Martin--you are Martin, are you?--so you've come to take poor
Collingwood's job. I won't shake hands--too hot. Well, passages have
been booked for you and your gunner in that steamer," pointing to a
disreputable little steamer I could see through the gun port. "She
leaves to-morrow morning at daylight. You will go aboard her to-night.
We lent Wilson, one of our fellows, to the _Bunder Abbas_, until you
came. You'll find him at Jask--only too anxious to see you, I expect.
You'll take her over from him, and the boss at the telegraph station--a
kind of political agent--will pass on any orders to you. You are, more
or less, lent to the Indian Government, you know."