I yelled to Mr. Scarlett to come alongside again (my voice hardly reached my own ears), but a cloud of steam rushed hurriedly up from the boiler-room, and I knew what that meant—her fires had been put out, and she was perfectly helpless.
For a moment I wondered whether she could live in that sea. It flashed across my brain that I'd made a fool of myself and lost her; then a wave soaked me to the skin and half-smothered me.
By this time we were a quarter of a mile apart, the dhow with her tall sides and mast drifting to leeward much more rapidly than the Bunder Abbas. As I watched her, wallowing deeply, the after awning tore away completely, whirling and twisting. It was carried up in the air like a dry leaf, and was actually borne right over the dhow before it fell into the sea. I saw the nakhoda still smiling from under his burnous—he knew perfectly well that neither the Bunder Abbas nor her guns mattered now—and I realized that Dobson, Wiggins, and myself were alone with those Arabs in a crazy dhow, with a gale blowing harder every moment, and no possible means of leaving her. I did not count Jaffa, the interpreter; it was not his job to fight, and if it came to a scrap he certainly did not look as if he would be of any use.
"We'll have to take her into Jask, sir," Dobson roared in my ears. "Right to lee'ard it is, sir. This breeze will take us there in next to no time."
What a chap! This "breeze"! Call this tearing, roaring fury of a gale a breeze!
My aunt; so we would! I'd never thought of that. We'd take her into Jask. Yes, we would! But there were those Arabs to be reckoned with, and they might have something to say about that. We should have to master them first and make them help us or the dhow might not weather the gale. We could do that, Dobson, Wiggins and I; we had our revolvers, whilst they seemed to be unarmed.
With something definite to do, and with the relief of not having yet lost my captured rifles, I really minded but little what happened. Those rifles were mine, and sooner than lose them—I'd go down with them. Take her into Jask! Of course we would. But first I must stand by the Bunder Abbas until she had raised steam again and was in safety. She was all right so far—a thousand yards to wind'ard, rolling horribly. Someone began semaphoring, and I read, "Fires washed out—am getting out sea anchor—will follow as soon as possible;" so Mr. Scarlett, or Moore, or somebody, was keeping his head.
"We must try and work her up to wind'ard," I bawled in Dobson's ear, but he shook his head and bawled something back which I could not hear. I meant to try, and the first thing to do was to get control of the helm, though how to do that with all those Arabs squatting there, glaring at us, I didn't know.
"Tell them to get for'ard," I yelled to Jaffa, and saw him crawl aft and shout something at them, gesticulating in a commanding way, though those infernal fellows only smiled and sat still, half a dozen of them holding on to the tiller ropes.
Dobson looked at me and bawled in my ear: