"Ah! you will have it, will you?" he cried, exulting in the mere thrill of battle. "Then lay on, you rabble!"
He stood in the central focus of the steam-yacht's searchlight, with muscle action unhampered and with bare feet gripping the deck firmly, while his enemies strove to reach him. His stanchion rose and fell like a flash as he circled in and out, avoiding the blows of his adversaries, and every time he struck a man went down. Once a sinewed Moroccan locked with him, and he felt the sting of steel in his shoulder, but a jolt on the fellow's neck from Britton's other arm stretched him senseless, while the knife clattered over the rail into the sea.
Crack! crack! The sound of his club grew monotonous; the soft, warm trickle of something down his left shoulder filled him with a strange disgust for the combat; he felt ashamed of himself standing in pyjamas on the lighted deck of another ship and striking down Berbers with a stanchion.
Since it was wholly necessary, the Englishman wondered at the sense of shame. Perhaps it was an odd trick which the wounded nerves in his arm were playing him.
Only three or four Arabs opposed Britton now. He ran at them with hands placed wide on his stanchion, like a wand, and swept them aside. The captain of the steamer stepped through into the cleared space on the after-deck.
"Give your orders," said Britton, with a sigh of relief.
He turned to the woman by the rail and raised her up as the feminine contingent was passed to the side and lowered into the harbor boats which were already alongside.
"You may enter one of them now," he said, marvelling vaguely at her perfect face. She touched his arm with a movement of gratitude, but her fingers came away wet and sticky.
"Someone slashed you!" she exclaimed in concern. "Let me see. Oh, let me bandage it. And I was the cause of your wound!"
"It is only a flesh wound–" began Britton.