"Get them under weigh. Then I think we may be able to repel these fellows if they attempt to land. Write us a note now, introducing us to your general, and John Bull and I will take it."
"Meanwhile where shall I hide my august person?"
"There is a rare lot of the august about your high-and-mightiness I must say, but 'pon honour, old chap, you'll feel safer and more at home in the coal cellar. I'm not joking, really."
Then both consuls bowed, and made for the door.
Mr. Johnson lingered a moment to smile and say, "Keep up your heart, Sultan; it is sure to come right in the end."
"Allah be praised for those words of comfort!" whimpered the Sultan, "I shall do what is best in His sight."
At this moment the bombardment seemed to be at its fiercest and the inhabitants of the doomed city were terror-stricken. Never before had anyone here, Arab, Parsee, Hindu, or negro slave, heard the sound of a gun fired in anger, nor the sound of a bursting shell. For the most part they lay low in their houses, fearing to go into the open or trust themselves in the bush, so that the usually crowded streets were now almost deserted.
Johnson and Munro got horses from the Sultan's stables and went tearing out to the sylvan suburbs.
They found here about 5,000 Arab soldiers. Only the ghost of an army, for of late years it had been much neglected, and many of the men were now unarmed while others had merely the long, old-fashioned Arab guns. But they had all spears and swords.
Darkness fell before the two consuls were able to evoke something like order and arrangement in this force. Only their presence had been a comfort to the officers, while the men were in good spirits and evidently burning for a fight.