The little Persian had fed him and told him the Skipper was still alive, though battered. He had also explained that the great pearling season, the Ghaus-al-Kabir, was about to close and that the pearling fleets would have their entire catch on board, which was the reason for the choice of this particular time for raiding. Mournfully, the little man added, “Why this raid, sar, is because the other boats chase Ras-el-Kasr boats from pearling banks because they steal.”
“Um,” said McGovern. “I’ve heard of that. Abu Nakhl is a born pirate an’ his boats have been up to their old tricks whenever the gunboat was out of sight.”
There is a British gunboat which patrols the pearling banks in the pearling seasons for the suppression of piracy. The task is a noble one which is picturesquely cursed by the crew of the British gunboat told off for the job. Because the Persian Gulf is hot. Even the seawater goes up to a surprising temperature in midsummer.
“Yes, sar,” said the little Persian unhappily. “An’ I, sar, are interpreter, and I beg intercession, sar, if we are captured and you are not killed before surrender.”
McGovern agreed to intercede, but did not expect to keep the promise. As he gathered the details, the raid would be made when the gunboat was known to be some distance away. If possible, in the middle of a shamal, one of those monster dust-storms from the Mesopotamian desert, which sweep in a monster spiral over the Gulf and fill the air with dust as with a fog. A hundred and fifty pious cutthroats would be packed on the Kingston. With sufficient daring in her handling—and your Arab does not lack daring at sea—she would go lumbering through a fairly brisk gale and throw a horde of bloodthirsty Moslems on the deck of boat after boat on the pearling banks. She would be hidden by the storm. She would leave no witnesses to identify her. And she would be back in Ras-el-Kasr with an alibi prepared by the time the fact of piracy committed was known.
It was simple enough, and probable enough. Ras-el-Kasr is in the middle of that strip the charts still call the “Pirate Coast.” McGovern, and the Skipper if alive, were being held in case of an emergency—to be used to work the Kingston out of any jam that bad seamanship or an engine breakdown might get her into. When they were no longer needed, they would be killed.
McGovern was gloomy enough and growing furious when four men, armed to the teeth, came casually into his cabin and kicked him, and slit his bonds and jerked him up into the chartroom. Abu Nakhl was waiting there, large and impressive and with the cold, dispassionate eye of a large cod. The Skipper was there too, badly battered, with one eye closed, and an expression of speechless rage upon his face.
The Sheik Abu Nakhl spoke, uninterestedly.