We Nearly Lose the Cutter!
“Larrikins,” said I, whispering in his ear, as we stood up together just in the rear of Mr Dabchick, balancing myself on one of the thwarts forward, being about to make another spring for the side of the big dhow, while Larry shoved a cartridge hastily into the breech of his rifle, and was in the act of taking a pot shot at a chap who seemed to be the skipper of the batilla and had a nose on him like the beak of a Brazilian parrot, “little Dabby means business!” He did.
Hardly had I said this to my chum, making him miss his aim, I am sorry to say, at the Arab beggar, who made a cut at me the next minute and would have sliced off my starboard fin if I had not drawn back rather hurriedly, ere our lieutenant sprang on to the back of Jones, the other bowman, and then jumped right clean amongst the mass of Arabs in the bows of the dhow.
“Come on, my lads!” he cried, in the middle of his jump; “follow me!”
This was enough for us.
Without an instant’s reflection I imitated Dabby, using Jones’s back as a scaling-ladder, as did half a dozen other fellows; until the poor beggar was pretty nearly trodden flat into the bottom of the boat.
‘Whiz!’ went the matchlock balls of the Arabs past our ears; ‘whir–r–ir’ sliced away their scimitars right and left in the air, with the regularity of so many flails at work on a barn-floor; but we did not mind them a bit, for the ‘phit—phit—phit!’ of the bullets from our Martini rifles pattered amongst the bronze-coloured rascals like hail, deadening the whiz of their longer-barrelled weapons, while ever and anon the Maxim of the second cutter grunted out a fusillade of grape, making a noise like that of an old man with a bad cough on a winter’s night going up to bed in the cold.
“Ship my rowlocks!” as father would have said had he been there, but the Maxim made some of those blessed Arabs cough, I can tell you; ay, and put a goodish few to bed too!
“Lor’,” cried Larrikins, who was fighting like a bulldog by my side, “I never did see, blame me Tom, sich a bloomin’ scrimmage in me life as this yere!”
It was all that, it being a case of give and take all round, for the Somalis made a rare stand.