Upon the dhow’s after-deck no one spoke for several minutes. Every one of the adventurers was doubtless busy with his own reflection, and there was an impressive touch about this silent putting forth into the darkness—a darkness not so deep as their own ignorance of the end of that voyage. And every one felt instinctively that much would be lost as well as won before that cargo should be raised that had cost the lives of so many men already.
A sudden recollection shook the spell of silence from Elliott.
“That other party at Zanzibar—what about them?” he asked.
“They got there over two weeks ago, just before I left,” Henninger answered. “There were two men. They must have been your friends Sevier and Carlton, by your description, and they were trying to hire some sort of craft and crew. Ships happened luckily to be scarce at Zanzibar just then, and they hadn’t made any headway when I came here to superintend things. Sullivan had chartered this boat already, and I picked up Hawke at Mozambique as I came down. They can’t have much the start of us at the most.”
“And what then?” demanded Bennett.
“Why, we outfitted this dhow, and no joke it was. We were lucky in picking up a full diving outfit. It’s badly battered, but we got it cheap, and it’ll serve. We hired a Berber Arab with it, who used to work on the sponge boats in the Levant and understands it. Then we had to rig a rough derrick apparatus to hoist heavy weights aboard by man-power. We had to get a crew, and provisions and arms—no end of things. It was like stocking a shop. We finished the job five days ago, and we’ve been waiting ever since for a message from you.”
“We’d have murdered you if we could have caught you. We were about ready to go off our heads,” Hawke supplemented.
The dhow was clearing the river mouth, and the Arab skipper hauled her course to the northward. The breeze was fresher outside, and she rapidly increased her speed, rolling heavily under the seas, for she was in light ballast.
“We’ve arranged to take turns standing watches,” said Henninger. “One of us must always be on guard till we get back. I’ll take the first watch, from nine o’clock till midnight, and then Hawke and then Sullivan, three hours apiece. Elliott and Bennett will take their turns the next night, and this arrangement gives two men a full sleep every night.”
“I’ll take my turn,” interposed Margaret.