The sun was now blazing down on us. Unfortunately we had not brought
our helmets or topees, having left the _Bunder Abbas_ at daybreak. Our
caps were little, if any, protection from it, in spite of our constantly
dipping them into the sea, and my head was burning and throbbing. Salt
water got into that wound, and I did not dare to take off the
handkerchief for fear of it bleeding again. Wiggins complained a good
deal of his ribs.
The nakhoda, too, recovered consciousness, and begged for water, sitting
up and moaning when he saw all the wreckage round him. He had such a
cruel, cunning face that I could not trust him for'ard with the crew,
but kept him aft with us. He looked as if it would have given him a
great deal of joy to cut our throats, and no doubt it would.
Every half-hour or so Dobson or I would go for'ard to see that the
hawser to the sea-anchor was not chafing in the "fairway," taking stock
of the weather at the same time. Every time I said: "I think it's
easing off," Dobson would shake his head; "'E ain't finished with 'is
tantrums yet, sir."
However, at last I felt sure that the gale was moderating. There were
not such high waves, they did not boil down on us so furiously, they
were longer too, not so steep, and we were certainly riding more easily.
Dobson at last agreed: "'E's in a good 'umour, I do believe."
The nakhoda's wicked old face was a good enough barometer. As the wind
and the sea fell, so did his face look more glum, until at last, when
there was no manner of doubt that the gale was fast dying down, he
scowled angrily. What idea he had in his cunning old head, I did not
know.
"We'll be able to start rigging a jury-rudder soon," I told Dobson,
"hoist a bit of sail, and bear away towards Jask."
I had given up any possibility of beating up to the _Bunder Abbas_. If
I could get into Jask the political agent would soon charter me a dhow
to go back and look for her.
Well, we made that jury-rudder. It took us two hard-working hours, and
without the help of the Arab crew we could not have made it. A clumsy
thing it was; a triangle made of balks of timber, with one long
projecting plank at each corner for the steering ropes. We also managed
to secure the lower after end of what remained of the sail, binding a
rope round it to act, later on, as a sheet.
There were still six able-bodied Arabs, not counting the nakhoda. The
wounded man (the one who could not walk) had been washed overboard by
the first big sea which struck us. The wounds of the others were not
worth troubling about. As far as I remember, Dobson's fists had made
them; certainly they had not been struck with bullets, because Jaffa was
the only one on board who had shown himself able to hit a haystack at
ten yards.
Having completed the jury-rudder we rested until the falling wind and
sea allowed us to use it. We took it "turn and turn about" to keep
watch, Jaffa and I, Dobson and Wiggins--nothing to do and two to do it.
The only thing we had to do was to keep an eye on the treacherous old
nakhoda.
The afternoon slipped by; the sun began to set in all its grandeur, and
only a few gloriously-tinted clouds, scudding across the sky, were left
to remind us that nature had been in such an angry mood. The wind and
the sea seemed to sink to rest with the sun; only an occasional sobbing
gust moaned through the rigging, and, rising from the sea, a huge full
moon, like a burnished silver plate, set deep in a dark indigo sky,
flooded us with light.
It was now possible to try to bring the dhow under control; so, first of
all, overboard went the jury-rudder, with two hawsers lashed to those
projecting planks, and led to either side of the poop. Then we hoisted a
little of our tattered sail, cut away the grass hawser to the
sea-anchor, and, the breeze--it was only a breeze now--blowing steadily
and softly from the north-west, filling the sail gently, we squared the
yard and let her "rip".
But the jury-rudder would not act as a rudder. It was too clumsy, and
the ropes attached to it too heavy. Twenty men on each would have been
scarcely sufficient to work it. However, it kept our stern to the
wind--acting as a drag on the dhow--and we scudded merrily away to the
south-east at about three knots. I imagined that we were about eighty
miles to the south-west of Jask, and hoped that as the breeze backed, as
it generally did for some time after a shamel, we should be presently
blown away to the east.
Up to now the Arab crew had been helping quite willingly: but whilst
they were working aft with the jury-rudder I noticed that the sly old
nakhoda took every opportunity of speaking to them, and that afterwards,
though they still worked, they worked sullenly and unwillingly.
I had thought of allowing him to go for'ard with them, but after this,
and after Jaffa had warned me not to do so ("He only make a mischief,"
he said), I kept him aft where he was, much as I disliked his company.
I rather fancy that that knock on the head had made me sleepy. I could
hardly keep my eyes open during my first turn of watch-keeping. It was
beautifully cool, the "shamel" was now nothing more than a respectable
breeze, and the long subsiding swell made a most heavenly sight in the
moonlight. Jaffa and I talked--it was the only way we could keep
awake--he telling me more about the peculiarities of the winds which
blew in this region. Then he went on to tell me some of the experiences
he had had during the nine years he had served in the British service as
an interpreter. Though they were very interesting I was more interested
in him and in his quiet aristocratic method of telling them. After the
wonderfully cool way he had handled his Mauser pistol that morning he
was not to me the same Jaffa who had boarded the dhow with us.
Dobson and Wiggins relieved us presently. "The jury-rudder is keeping
our stern into the wind well enough," I told Dobson; "the sea is nearly
smooth, the wind mostly gone, and the Arabs are all sound asleep--the
nakhoda under the poop, the rest for'ard."
Then I slept like a log until Dobson called me for another spell of
watch, and Jaffa and I were again on duty.
It was as wonderful, enchanting a sight as I have ever seen. Above us
the great, dazzling, silent moon; around us the sea, a rippling surface
of silvery white, stretching away to the circle of the horizon. The
little dhow, with her white deck and black shadows, was the centre of
it, her sail a great patch of white, casting its clear-cut shadow to
starboard over the bows and over the water under them, as sharply cut
where it fell on the water as across the deck.
In the bows, beyond the foot of the sail, the sleeping Arabs lay in its
dark shadow; in the stern, in the shadow of the poop, Dobson and Wiggins
were soon fast asleep--the nakhoda had crawled under the poop and slept
there.
It was all so silent and so beautiful--the embodiment of all that is
lovely and peaceful and good in nature--that the perils and tragedies of
the day before seemed almost unreal, and it seemed impossible to realize
that, unless we kept wideawake and alert for the first suspicious
movement, we might have our throats cut at any moment.
What we could realize--only too painfully--was that we were very hungry.
Probably that helped to keep us awake more than anything else.
At any rate we did keep awake until I thought that two hours had gone
by, when I woke Dobson, coiled down on deck again, and was asleep in a
second.
Something touched me. I woke up. Dobson was bending over me. "There's
summat going on for'ard, sir. I don't like the sound of it. I've been
for'ard under the foot of that 'ere sail twice in the past 'arf-'our,
and those noises leave off. I find them Arabs a-lying there as quiet as
mice in a nest, and I don't understand it."