"Miss Helmuth!" he called. "Get out here, quick!"
A second later the tent-flap was pulled aside and he saw the girl standing, her revolver in her hand. Her eyes widened in amazement at sight of him standing over the figure of Jenson.
"Get what necessities you must take, and do it in a hurry, please. Potbelly's holding the doctor up there with the shotgun, and we'll have to make tracks for the launch. Don't stop to argue, but for Heaven's sake get a move on if you want to skip out of here!"
He caught one muttered exclamation of something that sounded very much like "Thank God!" and she vanished. It was curious, thought Hammer, that while she had twice repulsed him that same day, with varied degrees of suspicion, she now did as he commanded without a word of protest.
Perhaps Potbelly had something to do with it, or else the sight of Jenson in bonds had influenced her to believe him sincere at last.
He eyed Baumgardner grimly, and, deciding to make the big boatswain of some use, ordered him to take charge of Jenson.
"If he gets away, one of you will stop a bullet," he concluded. "You go first and lead the way, Mohammed Bari."
The Kiswahili grinned, nodding cheerfully and seeming in no wise affected by the display of revolvers by these white men, to whose vagaries he was accustomed. Looking up at the hill, the American could see the tableau beneath the grass-thatch very clearly.
Potbelly stood with the shotgun at his shoulder, covering Krausz, who still lay on the ground, his heavy curses carrying down to the tents, and behind him stood the six seamen in a bunch.
"I guess that nigger's competent," chuckled Hammer to himself. "Wonder what he knows about my friend John Solomon?"