Edmund drew me aside.
“You’re not in the least likely to want this,” he said, “but you never know. You had better have it in case——”
He gave me a revolver, which I had unwillingly to put in my pocket. It seemed an enormous size and weight, and I always have a feeling that these things go off of themselves. Still, when I thought of Jakoub, I was glad to have it.
“Here’s another dozen rounds,” said Edmund, “you can give me the lot back in Alexandria.”
The crew were already busy making sail under Welfare’s directions.
I said good-bye to him with great regret. Edmund came ashore with me in the dinghy.
I looked back and said, “Do you know this is the first time I have seen the Astarte from outside?”
“So it is,” said Edmund. “Well, she’s pretty, isn’t she?”
She looked very beautiful lying there, “Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean,” her lines aspiring to the tall pointed bows and the noble length of her bowsprit, her tall pointed sails drooping gracefully to their own reflection in the water.
“I am very, very sorry to leave her,” I said.