The little cloud of smoke spurted out from beneath the awning, and the shell burst fifty or sixty yards in front of her bows. She took not the least notice, except to ease away the big sail again, still keeping on her course to the south'ard.
"The shamel's coming, sure enough; she's reckoning on that," Griffiths muttered under his breath. "When it comes, those chaps will carry on till they lose their mast. They have rifles, or they'd have lowered their sail. If they're caught, it means six months' 'chokey' for them, besides losing the dhow, so they're going to have a run for their money. That's what they're going to do."
I was so excited that I could hear my heart drumming in my ears.
The hardly ruffled surface of the sea now began to lose its clearness, and a little spray sprinkled the fo'c'sle, drying almost as it fell.
I called down to the fo'c'sle, and Mr. Scarlett fired a second gun, whereupon the crew evidently thought it wiser to haul down their big sail. Down it came, and, as we ran alongside, a little cur of a dog, running backwards and forwards, kept jumping up on the gunwale and barking at us. We could not help laughing at its absurd fury.
"Any fight in them?" I asked Griffiths.
"Not by a jugful, sir. They'll be as quiet as lambs. You'll 'ave to be mighty 'nippy' a-searching of 'er, sir; the shamel's coming."
As our sides grated together I clambered on board her, Jaffa, the interpreter, Dobson, the leading seaman, Jackson and Wiggins following me. The little dog snapped at us, then went howling aft to where the crew of the dhow—nine or ten of them—were squatting, glaring at us. There were two big hatches, one for'ard and the other aft of the mast, both covered with several layers of timber planks, securely lashed down. Beneath them were my rifles. I felt sure that she must be full of rifles, and that they were mine already. As Jaffa followed me aft, the others began to make the launch fast alongside with ropes thrown to them.
"Tell the nakhoda[#] to show his papers; tell him to get his hatches uncovered," I told Jaffa; and he, perfectly accustomed to this job, began jabbering to a saturnine, bearded old villain who sat on the raised poop-deck between the tiller ropes.
[#] Nakhoda = captain.