"Did the skipper tell you who has been killed?" he asked. "I'm afraid
it's our poor little friend's brother. What rotten hard luck on her if
it's true!"
In my excitement at getting this job I had never thought. Of course it
must be Borsen; he was the only other European there. Poor fellow!
Poor little sad-eyed slip of a girl, she would be weeping her heart out.
I had a burning feeling inside me, and I wished that I could have
started off then and there to blow a dozen or more of those cowardly
treacherous Baluchis to atoms.
"I wish I could come along with you," my chum said wistfully. "I'd love
to have a 'go' at them!"
He tried to get leave, but without success, so back I went to the
"_B.A._", angry, and impatient to get away.
"Good-bye, old chap! Tell her how very sorry I am," he called after me.
"Right you are!" I shouted back, but had an uneasy thought that perhaps
she was still too angry to allow me to speak to her.
I told Mr. Scarlett the news, rather expecting him to show the old
half-frightened expression, and was quite taken aback when he smiled and
said: "A chance of our seeing a bit more scrapping--eh, sir?" He said
it as if he, too, rather looked forward to such a thing happening, and I
had to look again at his face to make sure. Well, his disposition
seemed to be changing, and as there was nothing else to account for the
change except the parting with the snake I put it down to that.
It was splendid the way those artificers and lascars worked to finish
their job. They knew why they had to hurry, and they toiled and sweated
in the heat of the engine-room like demons.
By half-past ten that night we were ready. I sent the _Intrepid's_
artificers back to their ship with something inside them to warm their
stomachs, flashed across the "Permission to part company", and steamed
out of the harbour.
"He won't be there very long now," Mr. Scarlett grunted, jerking his
thumb towards the fort, whose towers and walls showed up above us in the
moonlight.
I really had forgotten Jassim, and did not care how soon he bribed the
jailers and got free. I despised myself for having allowed him to be
kept there.
Off we went to Jask---easily at first, to give the engines a chance of
settling down; later on as fast as they would whizz round.
We were all so impatient to get there that however fast they went the
"_B.A._" seemed to crawl along.
At ten o'clock next morning we met the fortnightly mail-steamer coming
from Jask, on her way to Muscat and Hartley semaphored across to ask if
all was well there.
Someone on board took in the signal and answered "Yes," to our great
relief, and then I asked if the two ladies from Jask were on board.
"No," was semaphored back, and I was half-glad and half-sorry--glad to
know that I should see them, sorry that another fortnight must elapse
before another steamer would give them a chance of escaping.
By noon the little white telegraph buildings showed up over the horizon,
and two hours later I steamed close in under the rocks on which they
stood, and anchored. No white handkerchief fluttered from the
signal-mast. Poor little lady, if it was her brother who had been
killed she must be somewhere inside those white walls in a terrible
state of grief.