The wrecked gig was only a mass of splinters. They shot life-lines from the deck of the cruiser and these were clutched by those of the boat’s crew who rose again to the surface. But I cannot say how many of those ill-fated Turks were finally rescued. For we had our own ship’s safety to look after, and when the dreadful simoon had subsided, which it did as suddenly as it had appeared, but after several hours of terror, the Khedive’s man-o’-war was but a dim speck upon the horizon, and soon we had lost sight of her altogether.
When, the strain being at last over, we met together in the main cabin for supper, it was a dismal enough lot of faces that surrounded the table. Except Joe. Joe did not seem dismal at all. He smiled upon us most cheerfully, until we all hated the boy for his good nature under such trying circumstances.
No one, however, cared to mention our great loss—which was in everyone’s mind—except Archie, who growled out:
“Why in thunder couldn’t the simoon have arrived an hour or so earlier, before we were robbed?”
But we chose not to heed the wail. Fate has her own way of ordaining things.
I rose abruptly and passed into my cabin, and to my surprise Joe followed. As he lighted my lamp and turned up the wick so that it illumined the room brightly, I heard him whistling softly to himself.
The boy annoyed me, and I turned upon him rather savagely.
“You seem quite content to have lost your inheritance,” said I; “but the rest of us are not so well satisfied. Can’t you try to respect our feelings?”
He grinned at me most provokingly.
“Strikes me we’ve got something yet to be thankful for, sir,” he replied. “The Turks didn’t bag so much treasure as they thought they did.”