BOWING IN THE MOST DIGNIFIED MANNER TO THE PRODIGAL SON AND OURSELVES, THEY SQUATTED IN A CIRCLE ROUND US.
However, the Prodigal Son seemed to soothe them and when Griffiths came up the beach with four fat bags of rupees—making two trips with them—and dumped them down at my feet, they became very affable indeed. To watch those dignified Arabs—half of them wounded and all of them scarred—try to pretend not to be interested in the four bags, when all the time their eyes kept turning towards them, evidently calculating how much was inside, was as good as a play.
Eventually, after innumerable cups of coffee, everything seemed to have been arranged peacefully. They rose to their feet, bowed to us, to the Prodigal Son, to each other, mounted their horses, and rode back to the two towns, leaving us alone.
"Well, I cannot thank you enough," he began, his face twitching as he pressed one hand against his broken arm, as though the pain was very great. "With your help, and with the money my father sent me, I have patched up the quarrel, and I trust it will be lasting."
"The quarrel or the patching up?" Popple Opstein interrupted admiringly. "I do really believe you'd prefer the first."
I'm certain that he was right too.
We induced him to come aboard the "B.A.", which he did in the uncomfortable little dinghy, first having sent the bags of silver into the fort, and he made himself so agreeable to Mr. Scarlett that the gunner's dark eyes glowed with pleasure.
"Will you do me one more favour?" he asked before he went ashore. "The Sultan will be anxious to hear how things are—you have seen for yourself. He is an old man, and he worries. Both of us will be the more grateful if you let him know as soon as you can."
We were so carried away by his delightful personality that within an hour the "B.A." was steaming back to Muscat, going so fast—to save daylight—through that tricky channel that the lascar drivers were scared to death by the noise of steam escaping through the piston-rod gland. We saved daylight right enough, and were soon tumbling about in the swell outside; but the gland gave so much trouble that we could only manage to go dead slow, with barely enough way to prevent the Bunder Abbas being driven on the rocks, where the roar of the breaking swell boomed in our ears all night. We had a most horrid time of it—old Popple Opstein and I—not knowing from one minute to another when the engines would stop entirely. It was not the slightest use to try to reach Muscat, and I only waited for the first streak of daylight to crawl back through the channel into safety.