The cutter was hoisted to the davits, and, whilst all the carpenters and ship-wrights in the ship were repairing her, the Intrepid slowly steamed inshore, towing my launch astern. Nicholson found time to look at the wounds in my scalp and forehead. He told me that they had healed splendidly; but when I saw them in a looking-glass—a great red line across my forehead and another on the side of my head across a patch of half-grown hair—I could not help making a grimace.
"It won't show in a month's time," he said, laughing. "Don't you worry about your beauty being spoilt; the girls will like you all the better for it."
Strangely enough, I did happen to be thinking that perhaps if that little, yellow-haired lady saw me now, her mocking grey eyes might look a little serious—for once. At any rate she could not possibly treat me as an infant. I grew quite red—though that I should have done so was perfectly absurd, because I scarcely knew her, had only spoken to her once or twice, and then she had treated me as if I were a midshipman or a mere child.
Nicholson read my thoughts—or thought he did—and chaffed me till I grew more red than ever, and wanted to kick him.
Five miles off Sheikh Hill the Intrepid lowered the repaired cutter, the Bunder Abbas came alongside for me and to take in more ammunition, my chum and an entirely fresh crew manned his boat, and I towed him back to his old billet. He looked so sad and "rigid" as the cliffs opened out and he saw the blackened mass of woodwork, all that remained of the dhow which had caused that tragedy of the morning, that I felt very nervous to leave him alone for the night. It was quite dark when I yelled "good night" to him and steamed away down the coast to Kuh-i-Mubarak, to try to find Evans.
We found him surely enough—or rather he found us. He mistook the "B.A." in the darkness for a dhow, and fired twenty or thirty rounds from his Maxim before he saw my flashing lamp.
He was awfully apologetic; though, as no damage had been done, it did not matter. He had not seen a suspicion of a dhow, nor had he heard the noise of our firing, so went nearly "off his head" with excitement when I told him what had happened.
Having found that he was safe and sound, I went back to my patrolling line.
For several weeks everything went on extremely quietly. Every morning I would hail old Popple Opstein, and find how things were going with him; sometimes, when there was no hurry, he even came aboard for a cup of coffee. Every morning I visited Evans, and these two events were about the only excitement we had; except, of course, the weekly Thursday afternoon alongside the Intrepid.
The weather was monotonously fine, and it really was monotonous work. Neither was Mr. Scarlett exactly the type of man I should have chosen to live with. We agreed very well, indeed, but he was of a morbid disposition, never laughed except cynically, and seldom talked much unless something or other stimulated his rather brooding, sluggish mind. Then, as you already know, it was difficult to make him stop.