In a short time the master returned and placed before them a plate of dried meat and some pieces of wheaten cake. This they devoured with the utmost satisfaction, completing the repast with a copious draught of cool water. Then both rose to their feet, and began to patrol the deck, for after having lived ashore for the greater part of one's existence, the craving for movement, for exercise of some description, when aboard a ship of such small proportions as the dhow, is very great. Half an hour later Jim gave vent to a sudden shout of joy and pointed astern.
"What do you make of that?" he asked in excited tones.
"No, not there, but more to the left."
Stretching out his arm so that his companion could follow the direction, he pointed to the horizon, where a faint streak of dark colour was visible. Tom looked at it for some minutes without answering, but at last he turned to Jim with smiling features, which told that he had guessed at the origin of the cloud.
"It's the gunboat, sure enough," he said, "and I tell you that it lifts a weight from my mind. You see, things have been rather uncertain, and there is no doubt that we have been in great danger. Of course, we came through this scuffle remarkably well, but if that pirate fellow had turned up again we should have been in a nasty mess. There can be no doubt that the patch of dark colour on the horizon is a steamer of some sort, and I fancy it will turn out to be the gunboat, for this is right out of the track of ordinary shipping, and though a few steamers are just now engaged in bringing stores to Berbera for the Mullah's expedition, I happen to know that none were leaving Aden during this week. So we can take it for certain that that is the gunboat, and I can tell you I am jolly glad. Won't it be grand when she comes alongside and finds the capture already made!"
"It ought to get you promotion, at any rate," answered Jim. "After all, when you come to look at the matter quietly, you must admit that it was rather a risky thing to do. Who else would have thought of making up as a Somali native and shipping aboard the very dhow upon the capture of which you were bent? Mind you, I take no credit to myself for that part of the adventure. It was you who planned the whole thing, and I think you deserve no end of praise. But, I say, look at her again."
By now the dark streak had developed into a low-lying hull, which was fast coming up from the horizon. Very soon a stumpy mast could be seen, poking up barely into the blue sky, and, within twenty minutes, Jim and Tom could even make out her guns, two of which stood amidships, and formed her only broadside, an amply sufficient one in such waters. Half an hour had barely passed before the gunboat came rushing alongside, surging through the swell, and sending the foam seething in a broad band of white from her cut-water. Then she put her helm hard over, and turning upon her heel in the space of a few seconds, and with a heave which caused her to roll her scuppers into the sea, she came up on the other quarter, and lay to, with the muzzle of one of her quick-firers grinning at the occupants of the dhow.
"Dhow ahoy!" came in stentorian tones. "Who's that?" shouted Tom in reply, springing upon the bulwark to obtain a better look. "Is it Humphreys?" "Yes; and who are you?" "Government agent from Aden," sang out Tom, refraining from giving his name, for, had he done so, the natives would have heard, and it would have become common property before very long. "I want to hand over this vessel to you. She's full of cheap guns, which were going to the Mullah. We've a couple of prisoners, too."
"Bravo! Congratulate you!" was shouted from the gunboat, while at the same moment a figure, clad from head to foot in snowy white, leapt upon the diminutive bridge and signalled to the dhow. "We'll come right alongside, and then you can slip aboard, and give us the tale. Any casualties?"
"None, I'm glad to say, though one, if not both, of us, was nearly killed. But we shot two of the crew, and threw their bodies overboard half an hour ago."