Ortho sprang back. Where had he heard that voice before? Then he remembered; it was Puddicombe’s. Puddicombe had not returned to Algiers after all, but was here waiting to row “Sore Eyes” across to Rabat to a banquet possibly.
“Who’s that?”
Ortho blundered up against the stem, pretending to be mildly drunk, mumbling in Arabic that he was a sailor from a trading felucca looking for his boat.
“Well, this is not yours, friend,” said Puddicombe. “Try down the beach. But if you take my advice you’ll not go boating to-night; you might fall overboard and get a drink of water which, by the sound of you, is not what thou art accustomed to.” He laughed at his own delightful wit.
Ortho stumbled into the fog, paused and thought matters over. To turn a ferryman out might take half an hour. Puddicombe had the only oars on the beach, therefore Puddicombe must give them up.
He lurched back again, steadied himself against the stem and asked the Devonian if he would put him off to his felucca, getting a flat refusal. Hiccuping, he said there was no offense meant and asked Puddicombe if he would like a sip of fig brandy. He said he had no unsurmountable objection, came forward to get it, and Ortho hit him over the head with the stirrup iron as hard as he could lay in. Puddicombe toppled face forwards out of the boat and lay on the sand without a sound or a twitch.
“I’m sorry I had to do it,” said Ortho, “but you yourself warned me to trust nobody, above all a fellow renegado. I’m only following your own advice. You’ll wake up before dawn. Good-by.”
Pushing the boat off, he jumped aboard and pulled for the grumble of the bar.
He went aground on the sand-spit, and rowing away from that very nearly stove the boat in on a jag of rock below the Kasba Oudaia. The corner passed, steering was simple for a time, one had merely to keep the boat pointed to the rollers. Over the bar he went, slung high, swung low, tugged on to easy water, and striking a glow on his flint and steel examined the compass.
Thus occasionally checking his course by the needle he pulled due west. He was well ahead of the ship, he thought, and by getting two miles out to sea would be lying dead in her track. Before long the land breeze would be blowing sufficient to push the fog back, but not enough to give the vessel more than two or three knots; in that light shallop he could catch her easily, if she were within reasonable distance.