There was a howl of joy and some of the engine room crew came pouring out and jumped down into the still raging battle.
“Anchor!” howled the Skipper, on the verge of exploding from rage, and pointing to the anchor whose fluke was caught in the cordage of the batil’s bowsprit.
McGovern raced down and forward. The anchor-chain paid out recklessly.
“Why the de’il,” McGovern panted, “he did that——”
From the wheelhouse came an infuriated bellow. The Skipper pointed enragedly to the steel-taut cable at the end of which the pearler wallowed desperately. He made gestures, and McGovern flung up his hands helplessly. The Kingston’s own anchor-chain continued to ooze out until a howl of anguished, helpless rage from the Skipper made McGovern look up. Then, in obedience to unmistakable if infuriated signs, he checked it.
“He’s gone dotty,” said McGovern dismally. “An anchor an’ chain would be cheap riddance.”
Then he saw the Skipper shooting from the wheelhouse. Fifteen or twenty yards separated the two vessels now, and McGovern whirled about to join in the fighting. But the fighting was over. The batil was being happily looted by Abu Nakhl’s men, and they had noted nothing whatever wrong with the Kingston. The Skipper continued to shoot, holding the wheel with one hand and shooting with the other. His expression was that of concentrated fury. He emptied his gun, bellowed with wrath at McGovern, and reloaded awkwardly. At his second shot the iron-stiff cable of the batil began to writhe. One of its strands had been severed by a bullet. That loosened strand curled up and writhed—and the cable broke.
The broken end screamed above McGovern’s head and splashed into the sea. Instantly, it seemed, the pearler was being driven astern. Heeling over until half her deck was under water, instant attention was given to the steamer. Wild howls and orders came from the looted batil.
And the Skipper, with an expression of pure ferocity upon his face, headed the Kingston into the teeth of the shamal again. Two minutes later came a shock as the paid-out anchor-chain drew taut. It raised from the water, and stiffened, and came inboard bending steel plates and stanchions in its passage. But it held.