The Intrepid's men were going round collecting the knives which the Arabs had dropped on deck. Dobson and I found our revolvers.
For the life of me I could not keep silent.
"How many cartridges are there in yours?" I asked him, opening my breech. "There are only two in mine."
"Not a blessed one, sir!" he grinned; so, after all, I had miscounted.
"How many have you?" I asked Wiggins.
"Not a blessed one either, sir! I did have two, but fired 'em when we sighted the Intrepid—that 'ere Pershun told me to!"
Commander Duckworth of the Intrepid now came on board the dhow, and I had to tell him the yarn all over again. In spite of feeling absolutely "played out", I talked as if I should never stop, telling him detail after detail, imploring him to go right away and hunt for the Bunder Abbas. I rather fancy I suggested that he should leave us in the dhow to sail into Jask.
However, I found myself, Dobson, Wiggins, and Jaffa climbing down into his boat and being pulled across to the Intrepid. I know that I talked to them all the time, and to Nicholson, the staff surgeon of the Intrepid, whilst he was probing and stitching those wounds of mine. When he had finished these he stuck the needle of a syringe into my arm. "That'll send you to sleep all right," he said, looking at me curiously.
When I went aft he was commencing work on three wounded Arabs who had been brought over. The rest of them were in the battery surrounded by inquisitive bluejackets. The old nakhoda squatted on deck by himself, covered up in his burnous, with only his eyes showing. He did not even deign to look at me. The Intrepid was already steaming ahead, her boats hoisted, and the dhow ("My dhow, old chap," I said, slapping old Popple Opstein on the back) was safely towing astern; I could see her mast.
"Rifles, my dear chap! She's simply chock-full of them!" I laughed.