“If we could pump, yes.”
“Well, rig the pump.”
“It is gone, sir. Doubtless thrown overboard.”
“That is indeed serious, Mr Nicholls.”
By daybreak the breeze had freshened considerably, but veered a bit, and was now dead ahead. The water had gained so much that the slaves had all to be taken on deck. Bailing was kept up, but seemed to do comparatively little good.
Harry walked up and down the deck for some time in deep thought. At last he called Mr Nicholls.
“Put her about,” he said, “she’ll make less water, then we will try to run for Magadoxa. We know the Parsee merchant there. And the Somalis are civil.”
“As civil,” said Nicholls, “as Somalis can be, when you are not standing under the lee of British bayonets. Trust a Somali and make friends with a fiend.”
The dhow went round with terrible flapping of her enormous sails, and much creaking of blocks, her great wings almost dragging the vessel on her beam ends.
But she went fast enough now. Dhows do fly before the wind, and, water-logged though this vessel was, her speed was marvellous.