"All right!" he exclaimed. "You take her, I hold you responsible, mind that. I wash my hands of you. You incited my crew to mutiny. Defied my orders."
Mr. Spokesly turned suddenly and Captain Rannie rushed to the ladder and descended halfway, holding by the hand-rail and looking up at Mr. Spokesly's knees.
"Don't you attack me!" he shrilled. "Don't you dare...." He paused, breathing heavily.
Mr. Spokesly walked to the ladder.
"You'd better go down and pull yourself together," he said in a low tone. "You're only making yourself conspicuous. I can manage without you. And if you come up here again until I've taken her in, by heavens I'll throw you over the side."
He walked back quickly to the bridge-rail, and stared with anxious eyes into the stretch of fairway. He could not help feeling that something tremendous was happening to him. To say that to the captain of the ship! But he had to keep his attention on the course. Looking ahead, it was as though he had made the same error of which he had accused the Captain, of running into the land. On the port side the low shore in the half-light ran up apparently into the immense wall of blue mountains in the distance. A few more miles and he would see. He looked down at the torn strakes draggling in the water alongside, at the smashed boat, and the tangled wreckage on the fore-deck. She was very much down by the head now, he noted. Yet they were making it. It would be any moment now when the land would open out away to the eastward and he would give the word to bear away.
And as the sun came up behind the great ranges of Asia and touched the dark blue above their summits with an electric radiance so that the sea and the shore, though dark, were yet strangely clear, he saw the white riffle of contending currents away to port, and got his sure bearings in the Gulf. And as he rang "Full speed ahead" he heard a step behind him and felt a quick pressure of his arm.
She was wearing the big blue overcoat, which was Plouff's last demonstration of his own peculiar and indefatigable usefulness, and her face glowed in the depths of the up-turned collar. The morning breeze blew her hair about as she peered eagerly towards the goal of her desire.
"See!" she cried happily, pointing, one finger showing at the end of the huge sleeve. "See the town?" She snatched the glasses and held them to her eyes. "Giaour Ismir!"
"You don't want to get into the boat after all," he said, putting his arm about her shoulders.