"That finishes the business," Mr. Scarlett said, drawing a deep breath, and letting it out again with a jerk.
We had been so certain—Mr. Scarlett and I—that they would have done the one thing or the other, and now they had done neither; they had simply stayed where they were, in complete possession of the base of the peninsula, and entirely cutting it off from any assistance from Old Jask.
Mr. Scarlett shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He could not understand these tactics.
"It ain't like 'em, sir; it ain't like anything I've seen or heard of before, and I don't care about it," he said, as I dismissed the men from the guns to get their breakfasts and scrub decks.
Whilst they were doing this we were startled suddenly by the sound of rifle firing, a long way off, in the direction of Old Jask, and drawing rapidly nearer. Without waiting for the order, the crew tumbled up from below to their guns, but no one could see anything happening. At first we made sure that another band of Afghans were attacking the old town; but this could not be so, because the people round the New Fort seemed even more startled than we had been. They sprang to their feet, seized their rifles, and whilst some began to "round up" the camels, driving them close to the wall, others poured into the fort itself.
Whilst we were wondering what all this meant, the battlements of the fort became alive with dark turbans; puffs of smoke darted out from them, and the reports of their rifles came across to us. At what they were firing we could neither see nor guess.
At last, after firing had been going on continuously for four or five minutes, Mr. Scarlett saw a cloud of dust, and, looking in the direction of his finger, I made out a number of mounted men—some on horses, others on camels—advancing over the plain from Old Jask. Spurts of light, showing in the cloud of sand dust over their heads, told us that it was from them we had heard the first firing.
"It's the old Mir's border police coming to recapture the fort," Mr. Scarlett sang out. "Now you'll see some pretty fighting. Just remember, sir, that they are mostly Bedouins from the other coast, and they and the Afghans hate each other like poison. Now watch what's going to happen."
I did; we all did.
The line of men came charging up to the base of the peninsula, sweeping away to the right and wheeling round the bend of the swamp lying there, until they were not more than two thousand yards from the fort. Firing from both parties was continuous. Then for a moment I lost sight of them behind some sand-hills, and expected, when next they appeared, to find that they had dismounted, left their horses and camels in rear of those sand-hills, and were attacking properly—with short rushes or something of that sort—although I was puzzled to think what they could effect against the thick walls of the fort.