Gunboat and Gun-runner: A Tale of the Persian Gulf

by T. T. Jeans

I, too, hated so much the idea of abandoning the "B.A." that I nodded my head in consent, and, having made all the arrangements with Mr. Fisher, he went back to the dinghy, though not before Mr. Fisher had implored Miss Borsen again, unavailingly, to accompany him. Not long afterwards he made a signal that he had determined to bring all hands with him, and that until they returned the "B.A." would be quite safe at her anchor.

I only hoped that she would, and I lay there dejected in the extreme, to think that now, of all times, I was helpless. It was no use pretending that I was not. Even without Miss Borsen to assure me that my only chance lay in remaining absolutely still, there was a funny feeling in my chest that the least exertion would finish me altogether. One or two drops of blood had come into my mouth during the day, and I instinctively knew that more was only waiting its chance. It was an extremely unhappy position to be in.

The remainder of the afternoon passed fairly quietly, and the dread of the coming night seemed to make the hours of daylight fly very quickly. Miss Borsen brought me some tea, and whilst she was in the room I remembered some signal I wanted to make to Mr. Scarlett. But the pencil had dropped off the bed and broken its point, so that it would not write, and I motioned to her that there was a knife in my dispatch-box. Whilst she was looking for it, jumbling among my letters and other papers, out slipped that little velvet bow, the one which had stuck to my button the night I had carried her over the swamp and made her so angry.

She picked it up, grew red, and I thought she was very angry at being reminded of the quarrel; because she shut up the box, said: "Bother the knife; it isn't here," and went away, sending in Hartley to help me with the signal.

This added to my worries.

As dark came on—very completely in the room, because of the sand-bags—I pictured the dinghy pulling to and fro to land Mr. Scarlett and the rest of the crew, and had a horrid feeling that they ought never to have left her. I feared, too, that they had not done this unobserved, because a good deal of firing broke out from the direction of the beach. However, there was no one to tell me what was happening, so I had to guess, listening anxiously to the murmur of voices outside, below the balcony, as Mr. Fisher and the others gathered near the door in the wall and prepared for their sortie.

I could hear them filling the magazines of their rifles, occasionally dropping a cartridge on the ground, and my ears were straining to hear the bolts fly back and to hear them rushing out; but instead of this a tremendous fusillade broke out down the slope, and the same yelling which had always accompanied the previous attacks broke the silence. So fearfully excited was I that more blood came into my mouth, and thoroughly frightened I lay flat, hardly able to breathe. The noises seemed to grow until they became one awful roar, dinning into my ear-drums till they seemed to overpower my brain altogether, and I must have lost consciousness.

I had a dim recollection of men running through my room, of rifles going off, and then woke to the fact that rifles were being fired quite close to me, outside on the balcony, their flashes lighting up the room, and that from every quarter came the most fearful uproar. People were running backwards and forwards, up and down the stairs; Zanzibari niggers came dragging sand-bags back through my room; the old butler, without his turban, came and went without giving a glance at me; no one seemed to take the least notice of me, and for some time I thought it must be another of those nightmares and I should presently waken.

Then the uproar seemed to grow more distant; a red glow filled the room with weird shadows, and what finally brought me to a realization that I was actually awake was Miss Borsen's hand sliding down to my wrist to feel my pulse.

"Hush!" she whispered; "keep still; you're all right now. They've got inside the walls and have gone off to burn down the other buildings. Mr. Fisher is down below—most of the others too; we are safe for some time."