Seizing his chance, the Arab captain sprang. The steel glittered in the starlight. Peter could see that. He braced himself to receive the stroke, when a dazzling reddish flash stabbed the air, followed almost simultaneously by a loud report.

As far as Peter was concerned the fight was finished. He lay unconscious on the deck, sandwiched between his living buckler and the body of the treacherous captain of the dhow.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

Olive deals with the Situation

A violent slatting of canvas was the first comprehensible sound that greeted Peter's ears as he began to recover his senses.

He opened his eyes and stared perplexedly at a light. It came from a familiar object--the boat's lamp. He could not understand why the sails were shaking, unless for some reason the boat had been allowed to run up into the wind, which was great carelessness on some one's part, he reflected.

Yet, somehow, he wasn't in the _West Barbican's_ boat, but on the deck of something far more s.p.a.cious.

He tried to sit up. The movement was a failure, resulting in a throbbing pain in the region of "Adam's apple". Remaining quiet for a few minutes he racked his bewildered brains to find a solution to the mystery.

He was lying on his left side, his head supported on a folded coat.

His forehead was bound round with a wet cloth. Why he knew not. It wasn't his head but his neck that was giving him pain.

And what was the boat's lantern doing there?

Then he became aware of a hand touching him lightly on the forehead.

He recoiled at the touch, and, turning his head, saw Olive kneeling on the deck beside him.

"h.e.l.lo!" he exclaimed feebly. "Where am I?"

"Still on the dhow," replied the girl. "You--we--are all right now."

"Are we?" rejoined Peter, still mystified. "Why is she run up into the wind? Can you give me a drink of water?"

Mostyn drank with difficulty. The liquid was refreshing to his parched tongue and lips, although it was a painful task to swallow. Then he looked at the girl again.

Her face was deathly pale, even in the yellow glare of the lantern.

She was bareheaded, her hair, loosely plaited, falling over her shoulders. There were dark patches on the hem of her badly worn skirt.

Then in a flash Mostyn remembered everything up to the time when he had lost consciousness--the treacherous attack upon his sleeping companions, his double fight against the four Arabs. Where were they now?

He staggered to his feet, and would have fallen promptly had not Olive held him up. Carefully she piloted him to the coaming of the hatch.

Although Peter's bodily strength was slow of recovery his brain was rapidly regaining its normal functions. Seated on the hatch, with the cool breeze fanning his face, he was able to take stock of his surroundings.

The dhow was not under control. Her lateen foresail was aback. The masterless tiller was swaying to and fro as the vessel gathered stern way.

Close to the mainmast were the disordered folds of the tent, on which lay the motionless forms of Preston and Mahmed. Reclining against the short p.o.o.p-ladder was Mrs. Shallop, her brawny arms bared to the elbow, and her black hair grotesquely awry. Peter could have sworn that she was wearing a wig.

Neither the two lascars nor the Arabs were to be seen, but the disordered, blood-stained deck bore traces of the desperate fight, while lying close to the fife-rail of the foremast was Mostyn's automatic.

"Are they dead?" inquired the Wireless Officer, pointing to the bodies of the Acting Chief and Mahmed. Somehow he could not bring himself to mention them by name.

"Mr. Preston's got a knife-thrust in the shoulder," replied Olive.

"Mahmed has half a dozen wounds, but he's still living. We dressed their injuries as well as we could--Mrs. Shallop and I."

"And where are the lascars?"

"Locked in for'ard," announced the girl. "We thought we would let them stop there a bit until we sorted things out. The Arabs? Mrs. Shallop attended to them. I helped a bit. She wanted to throw them overboard.

We lowered them into the after hold--all five."

Peter swallowed another draught of water. He suspected, not without reason, that he presented a pretty sight in the starlight. His shirt had been split across both shoulders, his right knee showed through a long rent in his trousers. His hair was matted with dried blood; his face was scratched and his neck swollen and purple-coloured. In addition, he was bespattered with the blood of at least one of his vanquished antagonists.

"We may as well release the lascars," he said "It's about time we got the dhow under control."

Together Olive and Peter went for'ard and cut the lashings that secured the forepeak hatch. It was quite a considerable time before the lascars summoned up courage to appear, not knowing what had happened, although they had heard the struggle and guessed what was taking place.

Fortunately they guessed wrongly. They were not in the power of the ferocious Arabs, and their relief was plain when they realized that Mostyn Sahib was still in command.

Fortunately both men were acquainted with the management of a dhow.

The foresail was filled and the helm put up, and once more the unwieldy craft was set upon her course.

There was little or nothing to be done for Preston and Mahmed. The former had recovered consciousness, having sustained a clean cut in the shoulder. It was Peter's servant who had borne the brunt of the initial attack, the Arabs, ignorant of his presence in the tent, having been under the impression that they were knifing his master.

Already Olive and Mrs. Shallop had washed their wounds and bandaged them with the cleanest linen obtainable, which happened to be the burnous of the Arab captain.

"Now you must sleep, Peter," said the girl authoritatively, after Mostyn had done his best for the dhow and her new crew. "You'll be fit for nothing to-morrow if you don't. No, I won't tell you anything more now. We'll be quite all right."

Mostyn obeyed the mandate. Apart from being utterly fatigued he rather liked being ordered about by the self-possessed and capable girl. In default of suitable bedding and covering, for the well-tried sail had been hacked almost to shreds, he stretched himself on a clear s.p.a.ce of deck and was soon sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.

When Peter awoke it was broad daylight. Olive was not to be seen, but Mrs. Shallop had evidently been a.s.serting herself--this time to good purpose; for, strange to relate, she was at the helm, while the lascars were engaged upon the finishing touches of "squaring up" the deck.

All traces of the encounter had been removed, and the planks had been scrubbed and washed down. Preston and Mahmed had been carried into one of the cabins under the p.o.o.p-deck, where already the Arabs' former quarters had been "swept and garnished".

Seeing Peter stir, Mrs. Shallop threw him a curt greeting, with the additional advice that if he went aft he would find something to eat.

Mostyn took the hint. He was feeling peckish. As he stooped to clear the break of the p.o.o.p he heard the woman shouting to the lascars to "get a move on, as I don't want to hang on here no longer than I can help"--a contradiction of terms which, however, had the desired effect upon those for whom it was intended.

In the aft cabin Peter found Olive presiding over a charcoal brazier and a bra.s.s coffee-pot, from which fragrant and almost forgotten odours were issuing. The dhow's larder had been raided, with the additional discovery of dates, dried goat's-flesh, bread, and several commodities of doubtful origin.

Peter enjoyed the meal immensely in spite of his inflamed gullet.

Then, over a cigarette, he heard Olive's account of her part in the desperate fight.

It appeared that the Arabs failed through a lack of concentration in their initial attack. Instead of four of them dealing with Peter and Preston (one of the crew had to be at the helm) two crept towards the tent in which the Acting Chief and Mahmed were sleeping while a third secured the hatch over the lascars, and the fourth directed his attention upon the cabin in which Mrs. Shallop had taken up her abode.

Awakened by the uproar, Olive slipped out of her shelter, and hid in the angle made by the rise of the p.o.o.p and the adjoining bulwark. The place was not only in shadow; it was hidden from the view of the Arab at the helm.

Horror-stricken, the girl watched the drama until she saw that Peter had thrown himself upon the would-be a.s.sa.s.sins. Up to that moment she had thought that he was struggling under the folds of the overthrown tent.

Then horror gave place to a strange fascination as she followed Mostyn's plucky and desperate struggle against the two Arabs. She wanted to go to his aid, but her limbs refused the dictates of her brain, apart from the fact that she was without a weapon of any description.

As in a hideous dream she saw the Wireless Officer struggle until he had overcome his antagonists, only to be attacked by the captain of the dhow and the Arab who had returned from his task of securing the lascars.