“Bravo! Nicholls. Well spoken, my brave man! I will not forget you when opportunity offers.”
Harry cast his eyes shorewards, the breakers were thundering on the beach, but no one was visible except a solitary armed Arab.
“Lower away the boats. Gently.”
The dhow was already bumping fearfully on the reef and rapidly going to pieces.
To stand on deck without clinging to bulwarks or rigging was impossible. The condition of the slaves was now pitiable in the extreme. They were huddled together, buried together, one might say, in one long cluster, dying, smothering each other, and drowning in the lee scuppers, for the sea was breaking clean over the wrecked and dismasted dhow.
Our fellows—bold blue-jackets—took them one by one as they came; they had almost to lift them down into the boats, so utterly prostrated with fear were they.
At last a boat got clear away.
Hardly had they left the dhow’s side, when high over the moaning and cries of the poor negroes, high over the sound of roaring tumbling waves and broken hissing water, arose a shout of triumph, and looking in the direction from which it proceeded, Harry could see the previously all but deserted beach swarming with armed and naked Indians.
The boat rode in on the top of a breaker, and was speedily seized and hauled up high and dry. The men were roped and thrown on their backs, and the slaves placed in a corner among rocks and guarded by spear-armed Somalis.
Then surf-boats were launched, and speedily got alongside the dhow.